


The Senator and the Jedi

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben Solo never fell AU, Bodyguard AU, Definite Anidala vibes, Eventual Smut, F/M, Flangst will be quite present, Forbidden Romance, Force Visions, Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, Jedi Protector Rey, Okay the smut is here, Pining and Politics, Senator Poe, Slow Burn, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2019-06-19 03:31:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 69,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15501366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: In the year 34 ABY, the New Republic is still attempting to right the wrongs committed by the Empire. The young, charismatic senator from Yavin 4, Poe Dameron, is on a path to become First Senator, and is largely influential in the votes surrounding the rebuilding of the Republic in the post-Imperial galaxy.When a threat against his life arises, Luke Skywalker sends a young Jedi to be Poe's bodyguard; the senator is hesitant to accept help at first, but he eventually falls for the young, bright-eyed woman who swore an oath to protect the galaxy, and to reject romantic love.Their connection ignites a spark that neither is willing or able to put out - a dangerous reality for a Jedi who already struggles with the call of the Dark.





	1. The Bodyguard

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much an AU - expect lots of canon divergence! Certain characters that definitely died will make (alive) appearances; we'll make up some rules about the New Republic (including leaving the seat of the Galactic Senate on Chandrila and not moving it to Hosnian Prime), change some things about Yavin, create more depth for Kes/Shara - we'll get it all. 
> 
>  
> 
> This AU is set in 34 ABY. Poe is still 32, the age he is in canon, but Rey's age has been adjusted to 20/21 (why? because the actress was in her twenties when she filmed the role, so Rey will be too). Rey's backstory will be revealed, but know that she was saved from Jakku at a younger age after Luke and Ben sensed her in the Force. Ben never fell in this universe - instead of falling years prior, he found renewed purpose as a guardian and mentor. (Rey was his padawan). 
> 
> Let's have some fun!

The vote is today.

Poe swings his legs out of bed and sits there for a minute, staring out the window of his penthouse apartment on Chandrila, before wiping his face with an open palm and rising fluidly. A droid approaches with his clothes, including the ceremonial robe of Yavin 4 that he’ll need to wear while representing his home planet.

It’s odd, he knows, to be so popular from a planet long discounted as nothing more than a farming colony. But Yavin’s place in the Rebellion, and Leia Organa’s own fondness for it, have helped it rise to a place of prominence, rivaling even some of the Core Worlds in importance. They don’t have much in the way of traditional exports – everyone loves koyo melons, Poe included, but they aren’t exactly materials for mining or industrial use – but they did have a rich cultural history and a number of bright scholars who had emerged in the post-war years.

His own father split his time between farming and academia, using what he’d learned first hand in the Rebellion to write widely and deeply on the concepts of democracy in a Post-Imperial world. His mother had been an outspoken activist for laborer’s rights; and when Poe had emerged in the public eye at the age of 16 as the youngest person to ever win the Intergalactic Triple Parsec, he became just another well-appreciated export of Yavin 4, another Dameron to keep an eye on.

And here he was at 32, the youngest person in the running for First Senator: rumors had sprouted last year of Leia Organa’s impending retirement. Personally, Poe still didn’t believe them, even though the senator herself had mentioned retiring early in interviews – the galaxy needs Leia, and she isn’t exactly the kind of person to step down before a job was done.

He muses on the potential retirement of his mentor, as well as his own decade long service in the Senate while dressing, quickly shaving and arranging his curls in a respectable manner. He knows Leia would like his hair a little shorter, a little more well-kempt, but he’d quit the military at 21, and felt no need to return to the high and tight that had been demanded by the New Republic Navy. No, he’ll stand tall (well, tall-ish) and proud at today’s vote with hair that would be easily recognized as Yavinese. Poe tugs his robe into place, gives his hair one last passing glance, and sweeps from his rooms.

He nods at security when he exits the building, hopping into the waiting podcar. He’d rather fly himself, but if Leia sends a driver, you accept it.

“How are you?” He asks politely, and the man grunts in response, lifting the podcar and accelerating down the avenue. “Yeah, me too.” Poe snorts and gazes at the city flashing by. It’s blue and a little eerie and nothing like the jungle paradise he’d grown up in; he misses the trees, misses the melons, _misses his father,_ but he’s here for at least the rest of the session – three more Standard months – and then he’ll be back to campaign (not that he really needs to, he’s running unopposed again this year, but he wants his people to remember they have a choice, and that when he appears it’s because he understands that he serves them and is listening to them), and he can get his fill of Yavin then.

His neck prickles uncomfortably, and he looks over to see another podcar flying close to them. Poe frowns at it, but then he shrugs. The avenues in this part of town are more narrow, and they’re probably just trying to get to work.

The fact that the person is wearing a cloth pinned over the lower half of their face to obscure it has more to do with air pollution, he’s sure. Yep. He’s very sure.

“Do you think you could turn up ahead?” Poe begins to ask, but then the driver of the other podcar pulls a blaster out from under their cloak and aims at Poe’s head. “Oh, motherfu—” he ducks quickly and the blaster shot goes over his head. Praying that it didn’t hit a civilian, Poe scrambles for his own side weapon, a commissioned piece he was allowed to keep after leaving the Navy, and sits up, ready to return fire.

The enemy driver is taking aim at his own driver, and Poe growls, aiming for the assailant’s wrist. His aim is true, but not before they’re successful in shooting his driver. The man slumps forward with a groan, and the podcar tips forward, down towards the ground hundreds of feet below. “Maker,” Poe swears, shooting at the other driver while leaping forward behind the wheel.

His driver’s still breathing, thank the gods, and Poe slides him over as carefully as possible while also desperately trying to reach the controls. He rights the podcar, and shoots up at their assailant, hurtling forward down the avenue. He grabs the comms and plugs in the code for the New Republic Police Force. “Mayday,” he shouts, “This is Senator Poe Dameron. I have an enemy assailant en route to the statehouse – requesting assistance immediately. Assailant is armed, and has already shot my driver – we are in the housing district, on Alderaan, just now passing Raddus – over.” He hangs the comms up, and pulls the podcar up, adrenaline racing in his blood. He yanks on the controls, spinning the nose to face the other car while still flying backwards; he takes less than a second to check over his shoulder, breathes deeply, and points his blaster right at the other man.

He looks surprised to see Poe’s daring maneuver – and Poe’ll think about how dangerous this is later – but he looks more generally panicked a split second later when Poe aims carefully for the ion engine on the bottom of the podcar and lights it up. The man goes down with a shout, just as the police arrive on the scene careening towards them in all directions. Poe throws his blaster down on the seat next to him and spins the car forward once more, punching it into neutral and raising his hands to show he’s weapons free.

He gets an escort to the ground level, and after he checks his driver and explains what happened to the medics who showed up before he hops out and runs to the other podcar.

“What the kriff was that?” He demands, pushing through the small crowd that had gathered.

“Senator Dameron.” The peacekeeper looks surprised and points towards her vehicle. “You should remove yourself from the scene.”

“I want to know what the kriff he wanted,” Poe snarls, glaring at the man, who’s being hefted out of the seat by two other peacekeepers. The first one he spoke to looks doubtful, her face twisting in anxiety, but before she can decide anything, there’s a shout from her colleagues.

“Long Live the Empire!” the man shouts, foaming at the mouth before slumping forward.

“Poison,” one peacekeeper explains, testing the man’s pulse before letting the corpse drop with a disgusted sigh. “It’s just like that other case.”

“What other case?” Poe demands, but he’s being ushered – more like politely shoved – to the waiting podcar.

Once he’s seated, the female peacekeeper smiles at him. “Alright, Senator, let’s get you home.”

“Like hell I’m going home,” Poe snorts. “You gonna tell me what that was about?”

She gives him a long look, and Poe grimaces. “Fine. Keep me in the dark. But I’m going to that damn vote, so if you would be so kind to drive me – if not, I can walk from here.” He really kriffing couldn’t, it was easily a two hour walk, but he gave her his flashiest smile, the heartbreaker Dameron classic - and surprise – he got a ride to the vote.

***

Poe checks his chrono – they’ve been at this for five hours, and he’s already gone up to speak. There hadn’t been a dry eye in the house (well, maybe some dry eyes from Core World representatives) when he spoke of the destruction and desolation he saw firsthand during his time in the Navy, on Jakku and Tatooine and all the desert planets. He spoke of the lines of starving people who were realistically slaves, sweating while they waited for portions that weren’t sufficient for a child; he spoke _of_ a small child he flew over on Jakku, skin and bones and fighting in the scrap pile with men twice their size, doubtlessly one of thousands of children consigned to a fate of violence and poverty.

Leia’s speaking right now, passionately, about the need for more governmental bodies to represent and specifically assist the Outer Rim (she speaks tearfully of her own family’s connection to Tatooine – the tears are fake, her grief is not), and they’ve definitely done enough to sway a majority of the senators to their side.

She finishes her speech by calling for a vote – to allocate the funding they’d found in the budget not towards a militarized policing force, but towards the creation of improved educational systems and senatorial positions – and they pass the motion – it’s close, but it passes, and the Outer Rim will hopefully experience a revitalization with more, targeted legislation that Poe’s itching to work through. But first, get more representatives from those worlds, really learn what they need –

His brain’s already flying a thousand parsecs a second when he walks to the door; he’s stopped by a warm hand on his elbow.

“Senator Dameron,” Leia squints up at him. “Funny, you don’t look like a man who almost died.”

“It really is a case of ‘you should see the other guy,’ Madam Senator.” Poe gives her yet another dazzling smile – the one that seems easier and easier to give the more tired he gets of it – and Leia doesn’t buy it for a second.

“With me.” She jerks her head towards her office in the back of the statehouse, and Poe follows with a sigh. He has a feeling she isn’t about to offer him some of her husband’s favorite Corellian whisky.

Sure enough, she sits down behind her desk and gestures to the open seat across from her. “I’m patching my brother in for this call,” she says, already tapping at her comms.

“Luke?” Poe frowns at that and holds his hand out plaintively, “I really don’t think you should bother a Jedi Master with anything that happened –”

“Leia.” Luke Skywalker’s wearing a brown robe and is sitting cross legged, apparently hovering off the ground in the holo. “How nice of you to call with actual technology.”

“The kid’s here,” Leia says, tossing her chin in Poe’s direction. Poe sighs and stands, walking over behind Leia’s chair.

“Hey, Luke,” he says tiredly, waving half-heartedly.

“Hey, kid!” Luke grins happily. “Howya doin’? How’s Kes?”

“Kes is great, the harvest was really good this year and—”

“Enough chitchat,” Leia elbows Poe and throws Luke a look that her twin takes seriously enough to stop grinning at Poe. “Another assassination attempt today, and another assassin dead. Self-administered poison, just like last time.”

“What last time?” Poe interrupts, only slightly wincing under the withering glare Leia throws over her shoulder. “Sorry, just, the peacekeeper said something about that too, and I’m a little behind. Who else was almost assassinated?”

Leia sighs heavily. “It would seem you, Senator Dameron.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Poe tries to sound polite, but he just sounds touchy. “If someone tried to kill me, don’t you think I would have noticed? Or at least I should have been informed?”

“We weren’t sure who the assassin was there for,” Leia sighs. “We identified them before they attacked, and it was when over a dozen senators were exiting a building. It could have been any Senator in general, and we didn’t want to cause panic, especially if it was a individual acting on their own. But Luke’s been doing research, and –“

“And it looks like the work of a faction following in the footsteps of Vader,” Luke chimes in. Poe frowns at the holo of his dad’s old friend. “Calling themselves the First Order. Big fans of the Imps. And not terribly big fans of hotshot young senators who champion democracy and are the poster boy of the New Republic.”

“Kriff.” Poe leans against the table behind Leia’s desk. “So, now what?”

“I’m going to keep investigating. There’s certainly a powerful disturbance in the Force, the kind I haven’t felt in years. I knew the source then, though, and now…it’s not so clear. But, Leia and I have agreed the best way to keep you where you need to be, while also protecting you.”

“Give me a better blaster?” Poe asks hopefully, hand going to his commissioned weapon.

Luke barks a laugh and Leia puts a hand over her mouth, no doubt hiding a smile.

“No. Leia, do you want to be the one to break the news?”

Leia swivels in her chair and fixes Poe with a glare that says _don’t you dare lose your temper with me, little boy._ “Luke’s sending a Jedi to be your bodyguard.”

Poe splutters, trying to maintain his composure even while his dignity staggers under this injustice. “A bodyguard? A _babysitter_? Surely the Jedi have better things to do than watch me go about my day.”

“You’re important to the Republic, Poe,” Leia says softly, and Luke nods in agreeance behind her. “It would just be until we’ve identified the source of these assassination attempts – until we’ve pinpointed someone of importance in the First Order.”

Poe scoffs, his hackles raise – he was a former soldier, for gods’ sake, he doesn’t need to be babied – and he feels more than hears Luke sigh as Leia stands, just as ready to go to battle.

***

Leia won the fight, of course.

It’s the day after, and Poe had been escorted to the statehouse by now less than five armed security guards – he could feel his mentor smirking from her swanky townhouse on the edge of town – and he’s deposited out front, under the watchful gaze of his security team.

Poe mutters under his breath about injustices and wastes of time – but then, he spots a familiar face. It’s _Ben,_ his friend from childhood, Ben, who he hasn’t seen in years. And then all the details fall into place.

Ben Solo is laughing, firstly – that’s what really grabs Poe’s attention. Ben Solo is laughing like Poe hasn’t seen him laugh since – _kriff,_ since they were kids, since before Leia sent him to Luke. Whoever he’s talking to is behind a column in front of the statehouse, but Ben looks carefree, the joy lining his face in a way that suggests familiarity and contentment.

Gods, it’s good to see Ben laughing again.

“Solo!” Poe shouts, cupping his hands around his mouth. Ben turns and sees him, and the laughter in his face dies down a bit – not in an insulting way, not at all. More of a fond way, more of a settling, a kindness in his eyes that wasn’t there when Poe had last seen him up close, seven years ago when they’d had that awful, knock-down fight – and he holds a finger out to the person he was talking to, out of sight.

“Senator Dameron, as I live and breathe,” Ben drawls, making short work of the distance between them. He holds his hand out to shake, but Poe knocks it aside and drags his old buddy down for a hug. “Senate hasn’t broken your old habits, I see.”

They pull away and grin at each other, and Poe punches him lightly in the arm. “Buddy, if they’d told me _you_ were going to by my babysitter, I probably would have broken less of the First Senator’s plates while making a stink in her office.”

Ben smiles at him, a little more awkwardly now. “Hasn’t anyone told you? I’m not here to babysit.”

“Oh?” Poe tilts his head, and Ben smiles a little more genuinely now as he calls out behind his shoulder.

“Come along, little one.” Ben’s face is a strange mixture of pride and anxiety while the person -the young woman - he had been talking to comes into view. Poe can barely hear Ben over the rushing in his ears – “—introduce my former Padawan, one of the youngest ever to pass the trials, if you can believe it—”

She’s – in a word, she’s beautiful. Tan but somehow freckled, with thick brown hair plaited into a no-nonsense braid, her cute, pert nose wrinkled while she smiles at Ben with even, white teeth; she’s tall, almost as tall as Poe is, her figure light and athletic but undeniably feminine and soft and –

Oh _kriff,_ Poe curses himself when she draws up to Ben’s shoulder because she’s so young, she’s – “A kid?” Poe asks incredulously. “I’m being babysat by someone’s baby?”

He says it out of complete concern for the girl, young and beautiful and sweet-faced, he says it in indignation that Luke and Leia would handpick a child for a dangerous assignment – but her face crumples briefly before it restructures into something stern and aloof. Ben makes no such effort to tame his emotions and scowls at Poe with a look that says _jackass._

“Senator Dameron,” she greets, all of the tentative joy and excitement that had just been on her face completely banished. She holds her hand out to him, and Poe takes it; the grip is firm, and he can feel a withholding of something, a strange electricity in his skin that tells him this girl could take him apart without batting one of her long eyelashes at him.

“Poe’s fine,” he says quickly, wanting to return a bit of a smile to her face. “And you are –”

She gives him a weird look. Right. Ben had probably said her name when he’d introduced her. Gods. “Rey.” The handshake concludes, and Poe drops his hand to his side, fighting the urge to shake it out, shake off this strange feeling coursing through it.

“Rey what?” Poe asks curiously. Her smile doesn’t return; if anything, her eyes grow harder.

“Just Rey.” She looks up at Ben, and her eyes soften. “You were right, Master.”

“I often am,” Ben teases, using a long finger to tap her on the nose. She giggles and swats at him before turning to Poe with a cool efficiency ruling her expression again.

“I’ll see you inside for the debrief, Senator.” She bows formally and walks away without looking back.

“Well, that could have gone better,” Ben remarks casually.

Poe fights the urge to punch him in his smug face.


	2. Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Rey say their goodbyes; Poe and Rey try to figure out their new dynamic with small success; Rey's strength is tested for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were some changes to canon here, on purpose. As a reminder, Poe is 32, the age he is at the beginning of TFA; however, Rey has been aged up to her early twenties (mainly to make it more realistic that she's no longer a padawan). Also, she explicitly says that she was a slave on Jakku, which they seem to have been leery about in canon (she was sold for drinking parts and was sold as part of an economy that benefited from her child labor, so.)
> 
> Also, I gave Jakku membership in the New Republic, which I don't believe is the case in canon? (I don't think? But hey, it's an AU, and let's do what we want for the #story). Also, they discuss a 'Select Senate,' which is basically an elite group of senators who get to discuss things outside of the regular senate and have more sway (Sound crappy? It is!)

The meeting with Leia is a quick rundown of the situation – there’s a threat against the more charismatic, progressive senators, the ones opting for more freedom and resources for the Outer Rim, and it seems to be coming from an underground organization called the First Order. Their best bet (Luke’s best bet) is that the terrorist group is being funded by multiple crime syndicates who have a vested interest in keeping the Outer Rim chaotic and lawless.

Rey nods and asks multiple questions that come out rapid-fire, decisive, thoughtful. Poe stares at her across the table for all of it, and when she catches him, she glares, almost defiant even as her blush reaches the tips of her ears.

Fuck, he shouldn’t think that’s cute, he shouldn’t be focusing on that, especially when Leia says, “All of the threats have been just that – threats, whispers, rumors. The only real attempts being made have been on Poe.”

He snaps to attention at that and huffs. “Do I get to carry my blaster now?” He demands. “I’d like to kill at least _one_ person when I’m assassinated.”

Rey smiles. It’s small, barely there, gone quickly. But she smiles.

“If you’re assassinated,” Ben corrects, smirking at Rey from next to Poe. “Our Rey will surprise you.”

“She’s already surprised me plenty,” Poe says honestly, meaning it as a compliment. He winks at her goodnaturedly, and her blush comes back, strongly.

Ben kicks him under the table. Hard.

“ _Hey._ ” Poe hisses.

The look Ben throws him is ‘that-is-my-sweet-baby-sister-and-I-will-murder-you-if-you-fucking-try.” Poe’s well versed in the look; he’s gotten it many times from many different people. It rarely (never) works.

Leia clears her throat, and Ben and Poe break from their glare session to look at her with calmer expressions. “I’d like to talk to you in private now, Rey.” The young Jedi nods, smiling, and Poe and Ben stand from the table and walk out into the hallway.

Once the doors hiss shut behind them, Ben turns to Poe and points a massive finger at him.

Before Ben can start scolding, Poe swats at the finger. “Yeah, yeah, I get it, she’s off-limits, which has nothing to do with you, by the way, more to do with the fact that she’s a Jedi, and she’s here to protect me, so I’ll keep my lecherous old man thoughts to myself. Got it.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Ben’s face is smug, and Poe dearly wants to smack it. If it were 14 and not 34 ABY, he would have. “What I was going to say was – don’t underestimate her power.”

“What?” Poe scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. How could I underestimate her? She’s a Jedi. I respect that.”

“No, you don’t understand me.” Ben folds his arms over his massive chest and stares down at him, brown eyes incredibly serious. “Do. Not.  Underestimate. Her. My padawan is exceptionally powerful. She makes me look like a cheap magician in the first level market at Coruscant.”

Poe’s eyebrows raise so much, he’s pretty sure they’ve vanished under his curls. “Yeah.” He draws the vowels out. “Okay. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Let’s hope that you don’t need to see it.” The doors open before Ben can explain what that means, but Poe has a fairly decent idea. Rey and Leia come out, and Leia jerks her head to the side; Poe follows obediently, and Ben and Rey walk down the hallway, side by side, steps in sync.

“You gonna give me a shovel talk, too, Senator?” Poe teases. It earns him a pinch on the arm, and he yelps. “Hey! The First Senator isn’t allowed to abuse her underlings! I checked!”

Leia scowls up at him, and he grins sheepishly. “I don’t need to give you a shovel talk, Poe. You and I both know that I don’t need to threaten you. If you did something monumentally stupid, you already know I’d kill you.”

“Dark joke to be making in these times, Senator,” Poe says, and Leia’s expression becomes almost painfully sad.

“You’re going to be just fine, Poe.” Her voice sounds wobbly, and Poe swallows. Kriff. If Leia cries, he’ll cry. It’s basic math. “Rey won’t let anything happen to you. Luke and I picked her ourselves.”

“I know,” Poe assures her. “I know, ma’am. You’re going to have to do better than a well-funded terrorist group to get rid of me.” He smiles at her kindly, and Leia smiles back.

“You know,” she looks thoughtful now, staring down the hallway. “My mother required a Jedi bodyguard during her tenure as senator. She ended up marrying him.” Leia leans up and brushes off what surely has to be an imaginary fleck of dust off of Poe’s shoulder. “It didn’t end well.” With that, Leia walks off, and Poe has to shake himself physically before he trots off in the direction Ben had gone.

He’s near the lift to the hangar bay when he finds them. Or rather, overhears them.

“I’m so proud of you, little one,” Poe freezes when he hears Ben’s low rumble. He has to make an active decision – eavesdrop? Walk away – before settling in behind a column, out of sight. He’s curious by nature, after all.

“Yeah, yeah.” Rey’s voice is a thousand times lighter than it was when she addressed Poe or Leia. “Pull the other one, Master Solo.” It’s impertinent, and dismissive, and Ben from ten years ago would have lost his shit right then and there from the very idea of being teased.

Instead, he laughs. “I mean it. You – you have made me proud every day since the day I met you. I doubted Luke’s wisdom at first, pairing you with me, when I was so angry _…_ and so lost. I wondered as time wore on how I could help you, when you were so untouched by the Dark, despite its best efforts – what could I have to offer to someone who was such a disciple of the Light already? All of the nonsense that was tearing me apart before we met – you showed me the way through it. I feel odd, knowing that you were only really ever my Padawan in name. I’ve learned so much from you these last seven years, and I – “ Ben’s voice broke, and Poe’s stomach lurched. He shouldn’t be listening to this. “I will miss you so much, Rey.”

“I’ll miss you too, you big nerfherder.” She sounds shaky too, and when Poe peeks around the corner, they’re embracing, Ben’s face not masked by the usual Jedi indifference or twisted by his Skywalker temper. He just looks – he looks young, and sad, and his smile is bittersweet when he pulls away. “Hey – hey. It’s not goodbye, Ben.” Poe swallows, something in his gut twisting at the compassion in Rey’s voice, something almost yearning blossoming there. He wishes he could see her face. He’s glad he can’t.

“No.” Ben clears his throat and laughs sheepishly. “It’s not. Be careful, little one. Listen to the Force. Center yourself on the Light. Don’t make me read about your daring-do in the holos. Avoid smacking sense into the politicians – literally that is. And try your best not to strangle Poe.”

“I can make promises on most of those,” Rey says, and Ben ruffles her hair, his face open and laughing again. Poe walks away from them, feeling ashamed that he’d listened for so long, but the dynamic between Jedi Master and Padawan had long fascinated him, even before Ben had joined the Order.

Rey and Ben’s relationship: it was something he could never understand. But his old friend seemed so peaceful with her, and she seemed so much sweeter with him.

Oddly, then, he felt a surge of homesickness. Not odd at all, actually, but easy to dissect. He missed Kes, missed the freedom he felt around his father on his homeplanet. He missed their carefree conversations, and he missed working in the fields with him, talking about everything from limmie to his mother to Han Solo.

He missed the Academy, too, back when he was just a hotshot kid who’d gotten lucky in a race and got luckier in training-simms. He missed his buddies, missed flying, missed _him –_

But he couldn’t think about that right now. Not when years and parsecs separated Poe from the boy he’d been, the anonymity he’d enjoyed, the friendships he’d built out of nothing but his own personality, his first love…

Maybe he’d give him a call, see how he was doing. It might be a little out of the blue, but they’d been friends first, and friends after. He’d moved on, of course, how could he not – and Poe had done fairly well for himself. He wasn’t still in love with him, but he’d love him until he died. That’s how first loves operated – they worked their way into your skin, into your heart, changing your genetic makeup.

They hadn’t been built to last, but that had only added a layer of excitement at the time. And they’d had nothing but respect for each other when they moved on, something Poe tried to replicate in all of his relationships, long-term or not, since.

Poe’s stirred from thoughts of the past, dredged up by the intimate moment he’d witnessed between mentor and pupil, by a soft clearing of the throat.

“Senator Dameron?” It’s Rey, who’s slightly pink in the cheeks, her eyes a little overbright. He doesn’t comment on it, just smiles at her. “We should head back to your quarters, unless there’s something you need to do.” Her face has settled into something dispassionate, aloof. It’s the same face Ben had for years when he still made visits to Yavin during his training.

“No, no,” Poe shakes his head and tries to maintain his smile, but looking at her feels like looking at the sun, and isn’t that a useless thought when she was a Jedi, sworn to chastity, and definitely _not_ a big fan of Poe Dameron. “Where’s Ben?”

Her expression doesn’t waver. “He departed for his ship. I’m sure he’s leaving now. Come along, Senator.” She turns and walks towards the exit for the street, where Poe’s podcar is waiting.

“Do you want to see him off?” Poe walks after her as quickly as he can. “I really don’t mind waiting, I’m sure it will be a while until you see him, and –”

Rey raises her hand to silence him when they reach the doors, and he immediately shuts up. Her head cocks to the side – she’s listening to something, he realizes, but what he couldn’t say. Then she nods, beckons him forward without looking back, and opens the door, walking through first.

“That’s kind of you, Senator.” Her voice is clipped like she doesn’t actually think it’s kind. Her eyes roam around the square as they walk out from the statehouse, through the columned open-air atrium, and down to the steps. “But I don’t find it constructive to watch people leave.”

There’s something behind the words, but he doesn’t feel bold enough to ask about it. Instead, he follows while she leads him to his waiting car, and when he pulls up and away, Rey continues to scan for threats. Conversations aren’t had as they fly through Chandrila, and he prepares himself for months of this awkward, forced civility from the young, pretty Jedi.       

***

The first week passes without incident.

He gets up on the first day to find Rey meditating near the windows facing the sunrise, her hair loose down her back, eyes closed. She’s wearing a tank top and soft, sleep pants that are cut to the knee, and an overwhelming feeling of peace emanates from her and fills the sitting room.

He watches her for longer than he should; but she’s kriffing levitating – was he supposed to look away? Poe had seen Luke and Ben both meditate – neither of them levitated, he was pretty sure.

But if he was being honest, it wasn’t just the display of power that had him staring. He was looking because she wasn’t just pretty, she was stunning; her hair had threads of gold and red woven amongst the dark brown, and it fell in waves to her mid-back. Her upturned nose was covered in freckles, freckles that appeared on her cheeks, her collarbone, and her shoulders. It’s when he starts counting the freckles he can see from his viewpoint in the doorway that he pulls away and walks to the kitchen to make caf.

He reads a holo-report like the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen isn’t floating off the godsdamned ground in the other room, sipping his caf, and he only looks up when Rey walks in, wearing a tunic now that falls to her knees. “Good morning,” he greets, holding out the pot of caf. “Want some?”

“No, thank you,” Rey wrinkles her nose distastefully at the pot. “I don’t care for caf.”

“No?” Poe pretends to be aghast and sets the pot back down. “Why ever not?” He adopts a mock Coruscanti accent (which, strangely, isn’t that far from Rey’s own).

“Makes me feel weird,” Rey shrugs and examines his appliances with an odd look on her face. “Like my skin’s vibrating.”

“Ah yeah,” Poe nods and stands to open the unit that houses his perishable food. “I always feel like that, to be fair. Been drinking it since I was ten, hard to tell what’s me and what’s the caf.”

“Sounds like you have a problem.” Is that – _was she teasing him_? Poe looks over, startled, and sees her hiding a smile, tucked into the corner of her pretty, pink mouth.

“I don’t have a problem,” Poe declares, drinking straight from the pot. “Totally normal, here. Now, I just need to drink three more liters and I’ll be good for the day.” It makes her actually smile, and when he lets some dribble out of his mouth – what, does he have to be mature all of the time? – she giggles for a second.

Kriff. He was better off not knowing what her laugh sounded like because now it’s like he’s a karking teenager, desperate to hear the sound again. She composes herself before he can figure out how to hear it again, and she straightens up from where she’d been leaning on his counter.

“You have a meeting at nine,” she says in a brisk, professional voice. “I’ll leave you to get dressed, and then meet you at the entrance.”

“Alright,” Poe says with a sigh.

“And Senator?”

 _It’s Poe,_ he wants to remind her. “Yes, Rey?”

“I’m flying today.” She’s gone before he can splutter out a protest.

They go to meetings all day, and when they return, Rey joins him briefly for dinner before excusing herself for evening meditation. He doesn’t get another word out of her past pleasantries, and it’s the same for the next three days – they spend passing moments together, and Rey’s a constant shadow that barely talks at his shoulder. He can’t get her to talk, and the days are unremarkable.

It changes on Benduday.

The morning meeting for the Senators Select is boring as all the hells, and Poe almost drifts off at one point before a Re’tha, a Core World senator, stands and complains about a perceived lack of disrespect from a smaller planet on the Outer Rim. Leia looks like she’s chewing something bitter while the man haughtily describes the way a ‘certain representative’ had spoken to him on the floor, and Poe’s pretty sure if he could roll his eyes with his whole body, he just did.

“I’m sorry, Senator Dameron, was there something you wanted to say?” Re’tha is looking over at him, and Poe sighs and taps his fingers on his chair.

“No, Re’tha, but I’m pretty sure there’s something _you_ wanted to say.” Poe examines his fingernails. His eyes flick to Leia, who outwardly looks disinterested. He knows better, though.

“I beg your pardon?”

Poe stands from his chair and folds his hands behind his back. He can see Rey take a step off the wall where she’s been waiting, standing patiently, for the entirety of the meeting. “I mean, you couching your discontent in a faux proclamation of politeness. You can’t outright say you’re prejudiced against a certain group, so you try to police the way an entire civilization acts. You’re unhappy with the Outer Rim being here at all. Or did you hope we would have forgotten that you were one of four senators to vote against Akiva’s acceptance into the New Republic almost thirty years ago?”

Re’tha draws himself up, clearly about to pretend to be indignant. “That’s hardly the point of what I’m –”

“What you’ve been describing,” Poe continues almost lazily, “about eye contact and hand shaking, are considered rudeness on _certain representative_ ’s home planets. Not everyone acts the way Coruscantis do, and you’d do well to remember that. And you’d do well to not speak about a civilization when they’re not here to defend themselves, as no Outer Rim planet is currently represented in the Select Senate.” Re’tha narrows his eyes at him, but Poe turns to Leia. “If it would please the First Senator, I’d move to end the morning session and when the afternoon session picks up, I’d like to discuss legislation regarding the regulation of the current slave trade on the desert planets in the Outer Rim.” Re’tha opens his mouth to say something, but Poe raises his hand. “As in, we should start discussing legislation to _actually_ shut it down.”

“Motion accepted.” Leia stands and straightens her robes. “This session is adjourned. I’ll see you back here in two hours. And Senator Re’tha, please do keep the complaints limited to my inbox in the future.” She breezes out of the room, and Re’tha snarls something at a fellow senator in a language Poe doesn’t speak, but he can tell is generally unpleasant.

Rey’s standing by the wall, looking a little uncomfortable with the hubbub now that a hundred senators have stood and are milling around, so Poe makes a direct course to her side. “Wanna take a walk?” he asks, already heading for the door.

She’s at his heels, and she mutters, “You don’t have to ask me. My job is to stay with you.”

“Yeah, thought I’d be polite.” Poe smirks at her over his shoulder, and she sniffs daintily as they walk out towards the main hall.

“Why isn’t—” Rey coughs and cuts herself off. They’re walking shoulder to shoulder now, and she looks surprised that she’d spoken at all.

“Why isn’t , what?” Poe asks, genuinely curious over what’s broken her days old, virtual silence.

“Why isn’t the Outer Rim represented in the Select Senate?” Rey asks, something pained on her face.

“Core World prejudice, I’m sure,” Poe answers. They cross the main hall and end up in a window overlooking the sea. He hops up onto the wide sill, one of his legs hanging off the side, and Rey perches next to him, her legs crossed under her primly. She gives him an odd look, so he explains further. “The Select Senate is a new idea, proposed by senators who were worried about how big the Senate had gotten.” He rolled his eyes. “Leia was against the idea, actually, but the Core Worlds had more representation to begin with, so the motion passed. The Senate voted on who got to be in it – I know, not very democratic – and Leia approached me four years ago to run for a seat on it. I’m well-liked enough,” Rey raises her eyebrows, and it honestly makes him laugh. “Yes, yes, very surprising, but I can be charming, whether or not you believe it.”

“I believe you _can_ be charming,” Rey says carefully. “But for how long is the real question.” She gives him a very serious look before something cracks in the expression; she looks out the window, smiling, and he savors it like a burst of sunshine.

“Long enough to get elected,” Poe says cheerfully. “But could I get your vote?”

“My vote wouldn’t matter,” Rey says, a pensive look returning to her lovely face.

“Don’t say that,” Poe urges. “Everyone’s vote matters. But, uh,” a thought crosses his mind. “Can … the Jedi vote?”

“No,” Rey says, something teasing in her eyes. “Probably a good thing, we’re all pacifists. Not big fans of fancy ex-Navy pilots with strong tendencies to vote for domestic defense expenditures.”

“Well, I mean, the best offense is a good…” Poe pauses and looks at her. “You looked at my voting records?”

“Maybe.” The smile’s back again, and really, it’s going to drive him mad. It lights up her entire face, the entire hall. “You have an alarming tendency to filibuster, Senator Dameron, until you get your way. I think I’d vote against you half the time just to frustrate you. And that wouldn’t be very ‘Jedi’ of me, now would it?”

“Maybe I should be glad you joined the Jedi,” Poe teases. “So you wouldn’t get in a booth and vote against me.”

Her face falls, and he wonders what he said wrong. He opens his mouth to apologize preemptively, but Rey’s looking out the window again, and she says softly, “I wouldn’t have been allowed to vote, even if I weren’t a Jedi.”

“What?” Poe can’t think of a single world where females of the species can’t vote, not in the New Republic, and Rey speaks Basic, so she’s definitely from a recognized world. “Why not?”

“I—” something in her face twists. “I was a nobody, from nowhere before Ben found me.”

Ben … _found_ …

“No one’s from nowhere,” Poe insists.

A little of the smile returns to her face. “Someone I care about very much said that to me once. But – like I told him – I’m from Jakku. So.”

“That’s…pretty much nowhere, yeah.” Rey laughs, and it isn’t a light laugh, but he’ll take it. “Jakku, though,” Poe frowns at her. “Voting is a thing on Jakku. You only have one senator position, but so does Yavin, and here I am.” He does an ironic sweep of the hands over his body, but Rey doesn’t smile.

“I wouldn’t have been allowed to vote.” She’s studying her hands now, jaw clenched. “I was a slave.”

“What?” Poe leans forward, frowning. “But— it’s technically in the Core, we regulate and—”

“Regulate? No one comes out to enforce it, Senator.” Rey doesn’t break her gaze at her hands. “I was sold when I was four. By my parents.” She looks up, and her eyes are hard; gone is the passive mask she’s worn for days, and something almost frightening in the depth of its anger is in its place. “For drinking money.”

He doesn’t say anything, he’s speechless – he’s made a career out of knowing the right thing to say, but he can’t get a single kriffing coherent thought out in front of this woman. Rey’s smile is bitter now. 

“Yeah. Hard to enforce legislature when parents are desperate enough to sell their own children, right?”

His mind’s going a thousand different directions, faster than the speed of light – _comfort her,_ something soft inside him urges– _find who made her look so haunted, and hurt them,_ something more primal says – _help the starving so they don’t turn to drinking and drugs,_ his politician’s mind reasons – but Rey’s still waiting for him to say something, anything.

Instead, he holds a hand out. Rey considers it for a moment, and then she bridges the distance between them and takes it. They both look out the window (Poe turns his head when looking at her gets a little too warm around the edges, and he’s sure she’s just mirroring his body language), and they sit in silence for a few minutes.

Her fingers are calloused, like his used to be, when he held a blaster and worked X-Wing controls. Even with the rough patches, her skin is soft, and warm, and he feels that distant humming he felt the first time they’d touched, a week ago. He’s lost in the simple gesture, even as he stares out the window – he wonders if this is even allowed for a Jedi to do, their lives are so restrictive. Is she allowed this simple human comfort? Is she allowed to enjoy soft, platonic touch? She’d hugged Ben, but they’d been friends, family really, for years.

 _You’re over thinking this,_ he points out to himself. It’s like his mind shrugs, and the anxiety falls away. They’re just holding hands. Children do this. Nothing wrong here.

They sit there for almost fifteen minutes, and it feels almost like meditating. Rey’s stomach growls though, and Poe laughs at the mortified look on her face. He takes her outside – she’s watching the world around them carefully – to his favorite food vendor, and tells her, “Whatever you want, Jedi, it’s on me.”

“Really?” Rey breathes. Her eyes are wide, terrifyingly so. “Whatever I –” Her stomach rumbles again, and Poe nudges her with his shoulder.

Shockingly, she greets the vendor in an alien language. He looks surprised as well, but garbles something back in Aqualish, and then he and Rey are having a lightning fast conversation, Rey bouncing eagerly on her toes as she peers into the food-cart, the vendor pointing things out and answering what are obviously questions from the Jedi.

Poe hands over the credits as the vendor slaps enough food for five on the counter. It’s not expensive, at all, but Rey’s stammering a thanks to him as she watches the transaction. Poe shrugs, and he’s about to say ‘no big deal,’ when he remembers what she literally just told him. He’d _seen_ Jakku. He should have known the scavengers weren’t there by choice – and logically he knew with an economy that bad, manual labor like that wasn’t really an active choice by the labor class – and he remembers with a pang the small forms of children fighting for their livelihoods in the sand.

Combined with the knowledge that Jedi didn’t really carry money or allow themselves extravagances, this really _was_ a big deal to Rey.

She’s taking a massive chomp out of some sort of meat on a stick; the vendor looks at her eagerly and asks a question, to which Rey moans with delight, wiping grease off of her mouth. She responds in Aqualish, almost girlish excitement radiating from her. It’s the most animated Poe’s seen her, and he’s absolutely stunned by her. She’s a different person, lighter, happier, almost like physical starlight. The vendor waves a hand at her, and Rey extends her own for a hearty shake. The vendor waves at them cheerfully before greeting the customer behind them in Basic, and Poe gathers up the food cartons as they walk away.

They settle in a small enclosure to the side of the statehouse’s entrance. You have to try this,” Rey says, still nibbling at her stick. “Here.” She hesitates for only a moment before holding it out for him, and Poe takes a bite of the offered food. He holds a hand under his mouth to catch anything that would fall out and embarrass him half to death, but Rey’s giving him a look of anticipation, not disgust, so he figures he’s doing alright.

“It’s good,” he notes. It is, tangy and well-spiced. No five-star meal, but it’s decent for how cheap it was.

“Better than good,” Rey declares, taking another satisfied bite. “It’s _brilliant._ And we have so much!” She scoots a carton closer to him and picks up another kind of food. She’s just as excited about that, and eventually, Poe forgoes his meal just to watch the delight on her face as she tries all the varieties of food he’d bought her.

Kriff, if she’s this excited, he can’t wait to take her to lunch next week, too.

***

The next Centaxday, things get heated in the afternoon session.

Poe goes almost toe to toe with Re’tha and his thugs – the representatives from Coruscant, Corellia, and even a few from Chandrila – and while Akiva, Hosnian Prime, and New Alderaan back him up, it’s tense as all the hells by the time he’s done debating. It very nearly did come to blows – but a look from Leia had Poe squaring his jaw and deciding to just take this motherkarkers down in committee before their vote the next day.

He’s in an absolutely foul mood when he walks away from the meeting, and Rey seems to pick up on the mood, if her nervous glances mean anything.

“Don’t do that,” Poe says tiredly, wiping a hand over his face. The senator from Akiva and one from Hosnian Prime are walking close behind them, so he speaks quietly as they head for the doors.

“Do what?” Rey’s jaw is just as tense as his, and honestly he should feel bad. She’s strong in the Force, so she must be picking up on whatever shitty vibes he’s broadcasting.

“Make me feel nervous,” Poe shoots back. Her darting eyes really are upping his anxiety. He collects his blaster from where he checked it with security and clips it to his belt.

“I’m not trying to make you feel nervous,” Rey says. They walk out into the atrium, and Rey grows even more tense. “I’m sorry – it’s just – something feels—”

Whatever it is Rey’s feeling doesn’t get said – it’s at that moment that Poe hears it himself. The cocking of multiple blasters at once.

He doesn’t have time to shout a warning to the other senators and the civilians milling around the square in front of the statehouse when someone screams something in Huttese.

“Get down!” Rey barks, waving a hand back. Poe’s about to retort that he can handle himself, his hand going to his own weapon, when a command of _fire!_ comes from across the square, up in a window. “Fuck,” Rey snarls, and Poe wishes he had energy to spare on being surprised at hearing her curse.

The rest of it happens in slow motion. Multiple beams of red light hurtle towards Poe, Rey, and the other two senators. None of them reach their destination.

Instead, Rey swings her right hand up, moving almost like a wave, her front foot bracing against the ground. Every single one of the blaster rounds freezes mid-air. Then, she twists her wrist around and _yanks_ hard enough that Poe swears he can feel it – a body topples out of the window, roughly where Poe had heard the voice call, and a few people stumble out of the crowd like drunken puppets, collapsing in a heap.

The Jedi storms towards them, an avenging angel, and when she reaches them, she stares for a moment. Then, Rey’s fist opens, and she sweeps her hand through the air once more, over their heads. All the assailants droop like their strings have been cut. Rey’s panting slightly when she turns around, her eyes weary and bloodshot like she’d skipped a week of sleep.

Poe stares at her in shock, well aware that his mouth is gaping open.

“ _Don’t underestimate her power,_ ” Ben had said.

All things considered, Poe barely considers that a warning now.

“Are you alright?” She asks Poe brusquely, walking back over. He nods, shocked absolutely silent, his mouth still open in surprise. “And you?” She kneels next to the senators that were behind them, her hands skimming their forms. “Were you hit?”

“N-n-no,” they stammer, but Rey’s standing already to greet local law enforcement.

“What the fuck?” Poe asks weakly.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” the senator from Akiva mutters.

***

Later that evening, when Rey is in the ‘fresher, Poe calls Ben at the Jedi Temple, a number he hasn’t used in years.

The flickering figure of Master Solo stands on his desk, and Poe paces while he describes the attack to him.

“I read the report,” Ben notes, not bothering to contain his amusement. “But I’m glad she was successful.”

“Me too, obviously, but, _Ben,_ ” Poe shakes his head, drags his hands through his hair. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“She’s strong in the Force,” the tall man acknowledges with a tip of his head.

 “No, Ben, I’m telling you – I grew up with you, and Luke, the tree, and all of it. But _that._ ” He’s going to go bald at this point. “I’ve never – it was – she’s a force of nature, Ben.”

“She’s one of a kind,” Ben says serenely, smiling through the holo. “She’s more powerful than any of us, and yet…”

The memory of how delighted she’d been with street food washes over Poe. Rey might certifiably be of another dimension, a goddess sharing her power with them, protecting the galaxy while barely breaking a sweat. _And yet._

She was innocent, and sweet, and excited for life in a way that was almost painfully refreshing after his years of cynicism and public service.

“Rey will save the galaxy,” Ben speaks as though no one’s listening – Poe wonders if the other man has forgotten he’s here. “She’ll save us all. She already saved me; I met her when I was deeply struggling with my place in all this. Showed me the way back to the Light without realizing she was doing it. And, she knocked me down a few pegs, humbled me. I needed it.” Ben shifts and stares directly at Poe, who flops down in his chair and props his head on his fist. “Be kind to her, Dameron. Very few people have been.” He disconnects the call before Poe can demand to know what that means.

 _Why wouldn’t I be kind to her?_ He wonders. Poe’s a lot of things – but he’s generally not a massive dick. At that moment, a soft knock sounds at his study door, “Come in,” he calls, checking his chrono. 2100. Everyone else on staff would have gone home by now.

Sure enough, Rey’s in the doorway, her hair wet from the fresher. She’s wearing a long shirt that reaches her mid-thigh, and she’s barefoot. The sight makes him inexplicably fond. “I’m going to bed,” she says, and kriff it’s so odd to have a woman saying that in his own home, and he has no urge to make a dirty comment about it. “Thought I’d check in on you.”

“Just finishing up some business,” Poe indicates the holopad on his desk. “Big vote tomorrow.”

“Yeah?” Rey rests her head on the doorframe, and the fondness he’d felt only multiples when she smiles at him through her lashes. “Gonna save the galaxy, Dameron?”

He’s picked up his holopad by this point, and he’s staring down at it when he responds, “With you by my side, I just might, Sunshine.” He looks up, half-smiling, and Rey’s face is absolutely unreadable. A hundred emotions seem to fill it, and yet he doesn’t catch a single one.

“Goodnight,” she whispers.

She’s gone before the echoed words have left his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I! am having! so much! fun with! this!
> 
>  
> 
> (I hope you guys are, too!)
> 
> ((PS, be prepared for a deeeep slowburn, full of pining. I wonder if Poe knows he's caught feelings yet?))


	3. Cabin Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia confines Poe to his penthouse until they gain a better grasp on the dangerous situation, or until they figure out a safer place for him to travel. 
> 
> This gives him plenty of opportunity to get to know his Jedi protector.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you want some fluff?!
> 
> (Also warning for some light 'smut': a character masturbates)

 “I really should ask Master Ben his opinion,” Rey sighs and examines her cards. Her dainty feet are perched on the coffee table, and Poe grins at the sight of her bare soles. “You know, about what kind of lowlife we’re dealing with.”

“Lowlife?” Poe quirks an eyebrow at Rey, fiddling with his deck. “That’s an odd choice of word for a Jedi.”

“I suppose.” Rey smiles and then leans forward in order to shove a pile of bang-corn at him. “Mine’s higher. I bet fifteen units.”

“Fifteen?” Poe snorts, and then counts out the kernels, pushes them towards her on the table (avoiding her feet because while cute and dainty, they are still feet, and he has standards). “You’re on, Jedi.” He flips his card onto the table and smirks at her. “Commander.”

“Oh dear.” Rey’s hazel eyes are wide and alarmingly sad, and she examines the kernels she’d just pushed at him with alarming regret. Poe regrets it too – he’s about to offer to give her pile back, it’s her first time playing klikklak, after all, and then Rey sets her card down with a sigh. “Mistress.”

Poe stares at her card and up at her face. As far as he can tell, she has no idea. He can’t lie to her, he just can’t, so he rubs a hand over his face and groans. “Mistress _is_ higher than Commander.” _Sweetheart_ almost slips past his lips. He catches it with his fingertips, pulls it back.

Rey’s face brightens – and if he didn’t know any better, he’d think there was a smirk mixed in there – and she collects the large pile of bang-corn. She shoves a couple pieces in her mouth without ceremony, licking the butter-grease right off her slender fingers.

Poe swallows and looks down.

“Another round, Senator?”

“…Sure.” _Whatever you want, just keep smiling like that._

“I’ll deal this time. How do you shuffle, again?’

***

After the attempt on his life, Leia strongly recommends (okay, so she demands, commands, requires) that Poe stay inside, out of sight, with his Jedi bodyguard and a small security team. He isn’t to leave his penthouse for at least two weeks, while Leia keeps her ear to the ground during a brief Senate recess, and Luke considers various options for safehouse planets, should Chandrila prove to be a continued threat.

Two weeks inside means two weeks with Rey, something he finds equal parts exasperating (for reasons he refuses to unpack) and exhilarating (same deal).

She continues to be a blend of innocent and wise, something he can barely wrap his brain around, and he’d always been so convinced that he was smart. He has to explain the rules of basic card games to her, explain how his caf-maker works (and he lets her take it apart and put it back together, an activity that thrills her. He’d complain about how she took it apart, put it back together, took it apart, put it back together over five times in an hour, but her cheeks turn such a lovely shade of pink, and her eyes sparkle in the way Poe’s sure is supposed to be limited to gems and jewels, so he doesn’t actually complain. Hells, he’d offer to let her take apart  _all_ of his appliances, if he thought it wouldn’t be weird). But at the same time, there’s a part of the day right after she meditates where her eyes look impossibly ancient and almost sad, and she speaks to him with a gravity he’ll never possess about matters of the galaxy. She shares with him her thoughts on freedom, on liberty, on democracy and its own pitfalls, and she holds her own in each argument (he doesn’t realize until the third day and the end of the third such argument that his blood doesn’t boil the way it does when most people contradict him. He’s warm, but in an entirely different, new way).

And another thing: Rey’s completely guileless about the human body – Poe blushes to the roots of his hair still at the memory of the first night of their curfew, when she’d wandered through the apartment at night wearing nothing but her underclothes – but she squirms when people kiss in the collection of holo-reels that Poe owns and is steadily working through during his confinement.

Bodies are just bodies to her, he comes to realize, but their capability to feel pleasure is something she’s been taught to ignore and reject. It’s an oddly lonely thought for a free-wheeling Senator with a separate address book dedicated to the people he’s slept with.

For better or for worse (and Poe lands on the thought that this is much, _much_ better), they’re stuck inside, together, for two weeks. And to someone who’s barely seen the galaxy, those two weeks don’t seem nearly as awful as they could be: and her enthusiasm proves most contagious.

***

“I’m not sure you’re aware,” Poe drawls, leaning back against the cushions. “But your hair’s a total mess.”

“I-is it?” Rey stammers, her slender hand going to her braid. Her card rests forgotten in her other hand.

“Yep.” Poe pops his lips obnoxiously. “It’s a real bird’s nest. Did you even look in the mirror before coming out this morning?”

It’s part of the game, for Maker’s sake, he’s _supposed_ to be insulting her, and she had just teased him a minute ago about his scruff (she had said, her tongue between her teeth as she fake-jeered, _“Doesn’t it scratch, Senator?”_ and it had taken every ounce of his self-control to not slip into his habits and say, _“Wanna find out?”_ ), but her bottom lip kriffing quivers, and she stares down at the wood of the coffeetable, her knees drawing almost subconsciously up to her small body.

“I – I didn’t have a mirror at the temple,” Rey whispers, looking mortified. “I forget now that I … that it’s an option. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay!” Poe splutters. “No, really, I promise – I didn’t mean it, your hair looks great?”

“Yeah?” Rey smiles at him shyly, and his heart, the traitor, pounds in his chest. “It’s – it’s not too high up on my head?”

“No!” Maker, girl’s hair was weird. His hair had two modes: curly and more curly. Nothing fancy to do there (not that it stopped him from owning three kinds of moisturizer). “No, I promise, it looks great.”

The timer goes off between them, marking the end of ten minutes. Rey nods at him, her hand fiddling with her bowl.

“Mine’s lower than yours,” she decides serenely. “I bet … thirty units.”

Poe raises his eyebrows at his card. “Tough bet, Jedi. But I’ll raise you. Forty units. Mine’s lower.”

She nods at him, and he drops his card on the table. “Balance,” he crows. It’s negative eleven points, there’s such a kriffing small chance that she –

Rey tosses her card into the space between them, and Poe slumps forward with a moan of disbelief. His Jedi begins to count out her prize from his pile of berries.

_Moderation._

Negative fourteen points.

***

They run into a serious problem on the fifth day, the end of their first week together.

(So, maybe it’s not _that_ serious. At least, Rey has no idea what happened. Poe can at least cling to that shred of dignity.)

It’s all because Poe pardons himself from afternoon meditation – Rey had taught him how to calm his breathing, had walked him through her various mantras, and had only laughed for two minutes when he bitched and moaned about not being able to levitate like she could – and heads to the ‘fresher after about fifteen minutes of peace-seeking with the Jedi.

It has been _five_ days of inactivity. Sure, he does his aerobics in his room, and he runs using his equipment, and does various oddly difficult stretching exercises with Rey, but his skin is itching. He had holoed some friends that morning after breakfast, read a few reports he’d been putting off, and sent some data to Leia for review, but it’s barely 1400 and he’s going out of his mind.

So, he stands in the ‘fresher, and does one of the things he does best, a thing he’d perfected over the last twenty-odd years.

Poe leans back against the wall, the water cascading around him, and runs his hand down the planes of his stomach. He thinks about no one in particular, just gets lost in the general pleasantness of touch and sensation, not needing to assign the feeling of water on his skin to a phantom projection of any one person’s inquisitive hands. The steam in the ‘fresher aids him in his goal for more sensation, more feeling, more heat, and Poe moans quietly in his throat.

His mind wanders, which is really the kriffing point, to just detach and feel for a few minutes, and as his thumb brushes over the head of his now fully erect cock, he slips and remembers breakfast –

Specifically, he remembers how a certain Jedi’s face had looked when she emerged from morning meditation to find a separate plate on the counter, piled high with protein and sweetcakes. _“Are you expecting company?”_ she’d asked, teeth working at her bottom lip, no doubt worried about the logistics of guarding Poe’s life with guests running around.

“ _No_ ,” he’d pointed at her plate with the spatula and grinned at her. “ _Got tired of watching you drink protein shakes. Go on, eat up._ ”

“ _You made this for me?_ ” He’d never forget the look of tentative joy on her face, and it had broken his heart almost in two at how she’d approached the counter, like he’d snatch it away from her, like it would disappear.

 _“Absolutely,_ ” he answered with a smile that felt more shy by the second. “ _It’s all for you._

Rey had stood there for a second, utensil in hand, one leg already perched on the stool as she weighed something in her mind. After a moment, she said “ _Thank you…Poe._ ”

\--And that brings him back to the present, in his ‘fresher, cock in his hand, burning with the memory of Rey saying his name.

 _It’s because she’s the only person I’ve seen in five days,_ he tells himself as shame pools in his stomach. _That’s why I’m even thinking about her –_ “Poe,” the memory whispers, “Oh, Poe,” and unbidden, it transforms into a speculation, how her tan but freckled skin might feel under the palm of his hand, how the palm of _her_ hand might feel on his skin, and fuck, fucking hells, kark him, he’s a piece of shit for thinking about this, but he’s getting harder and his stomach is burning and he can’t stop it, it’s like a collision course, and he doesn’t want to eject, not when Rey brushes up against him gently in the vision and giggles like she had when he’d grabbed her foot that one time she put it up on the kitchen table, and—

Something _bangs_ on the door to the ‘fresher, and Poe just about jumps out of his skin.

“Are you alright?” Rey’s wary voice calls through the door, and his traitorous dick twitches in interest.

“Y-yes,” Poe stammers back, the water still warm and soothing around him. _Invite her in,_ his dick suggests. Poe snatches his hand away and braces it against the slick wall behind him. “I’m fine. Why?”

“You just felt…” Rey clears her throat. “Strange. Like you were … upset. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Never better,” Poe shouts back. “Peachy keen.”

“I don’t know what that means.” She sounds fond though, fond and exasperated, as though she can’t believe how kriffing weird her charge is (and that’s what he is to her, he reminds himself, his erection still not flagging, this is a job for her, an important job, and she’s important, she’s so, so important). “I’ll leave you to it.”

She wanders away, and Poe groans, looks down at the still-present problem, and goes back to it, staring at the water pooling at his feet, and determinedly not thinking about lilting accents or hazel eyes.

He’s never cum so fast in his life.

And as the water carries the evidence away, he tells himself he’s just imagining how unsatisfying it felt.

***

“Mine’s higher,” Poe says, smirking at Rey. “Twenty units.”

“Big talk,” Rey says serenely. “You must be pretty sure of yourself.”

Poe shrugs and continues smirking. He’s been told that it’s a charming expression, that it could quite honestly _charm the pants off of anyone breathing,_ but Rey seems entirely immune.

“I don’t believe you,” she says after a moment. “So I’ll take your bet.”

“Alright.” Poe hands her his card. “Master.”

“Oh, poo,” Rey smirks right back at him, and now he’s the one who can’t think straight. “Ace.”

She only laughs for about five minutes.

The monster.

***

“So, did you always want to be a Jedi?” Poe asks one day while Rey’s tinkering around with something in his closet.

Not just something. His BB-unit, his darling, precious astromech from his days at the Academy, the droid he’d built himself. It hadn’t worked in over a year, and Poe had been too tired, too anxious to try and piece it back together without access to the appropriate parts.

Rey had no such qualms – she took one look at the orange and white body hanging out in his storage space, and after she’d run a brief diagnostic, she ignored Poe’s protests that they didn’t have the right equipment, and tore apart his toaster, declaring that she could get everything she needed from stuff he already had.

“Nope.” Rey’s head pops out from the closet, and she jabs a finger at the toolbox he pulled out from under his bed (and she rolled her eyes at the layer of dust he’d blown off of it). “Hydrospanner.” She gives him a grunt of thanks when he passes over the right tool, and an alarming number of sparks fly out from the small, enclosed space.

“Shouldn’t we do this outside?” Poe asks nervously.

“It’s not safe outside,” Rey responds, and Poe’s eyes widen at the ridiculous statement.

“Yes, because burning down my apartment is much safer,” he says, incredulous.

“Well, if it’s any consolation,” Rey throws the hydrospanner behind her, and Poe barely catches it before it smacks into the ground. “I highly doubt any assassin is well-paid enough to try to murder you in the middle of a burning building.”

“Yeah, that makes me feel loads better, thanks,” Poe snarks. He returns to their earlier topic now that the machinery noises coming from the storage closet are a little less alarming. “So if you weren’t going to be a Jedi, what would you want to be?”

“You really want to know?” Rey stops working and rolls out towards him, sitting on rolling platform. Poe nods encouragingly, and she smiles, looking away, looking down. Her hand tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, and Poe regrets that he didn’t do it first. “I um – Well, I could still do it as a Jedi, but I always wanted to be a pilot.”

“A pilot?” Poe grins at her, and she nods, squirming self-consciously. “All that grief you gave me about being Ex-Navy, and you want to be a pilot?”

“Yes, well,” Rey flushes, and he finds that he likes it. “I – I could be a Jedi _and_ a pilot. I could be an Ace.”

“An Ace,” Poe repeats. He frowns, trying to recall from his military days. “I think that was just an idea when I was at the Academy. Wasn’t Luke Skywalker technically an Ace?”

“Eh.” Rey waves her hand back and forth, her fingers a quick tremolo. “Sort of. He was definitely the best pilot in the Rebellion. He’s still amazing, but he rarely indulges.” She smiles fondly, shaking her head. “Ben’s incredible too, but he doesn’t like to fly as much either. Mr. Pretentious says that if it isn’t the Millennium Falcon, it isn’t worth flying.”

“That _is_ pretentious,” Poe agrees solemnly, and Rey’s smile cracks wider at his shared opinion. “But, to be fair – the _Falcon._ ”

“Yeah,” Rey sighs with stars in her eyes, and Poe’s stomach feels so strangely warm. “I rode in it once. Han said he’d airlock me if I touched anything, I was only sixteen, but Chewbacca let me sit in the co-pilot’s seat.”

“Chewbacca,” Poe’s swamped with fondness for the old Wookie. “He’s even harder to win over than Han. Very impressive.”

“He said I was a natural pilot, and that Han was being ridiculous,” Rey puffs up with residual pride, and Poe huffs a soft laugh at how her sweet face lights up. “But, it’s a moot point, I’m afraid. Master Luke doesn’t want me flying.”

“No?” Poe quirks a brow at her, and Rey looks oddly…guilty?

“I didn’t exactly want this assignment,” she says quietly. She’s fiddling with a tool again, and she leans into the closet. Poe watches her more closely this time, sees her in BB’s control panel, adjusting a few wires carefully. “No offense to you, of course, it’s just…I passed the trials, and begged to train as an Ace. Luke said I had to at least try my hand at peace-keeping first, and a few months later, he sent me here.” Rey looks up, closing the panel on his droid and smiles at him. “It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. A lot more shooting that I expected, so there’s that.”

“Glad I’m not boring you,” Poe teases, and Rey rolls her eyes, and begins to program the initiation sequence one-handed, not looking. Show-off. “But, if you had to pick, you’d be a Jedi Ace? That’s what you want, more than anything?” He doesn’t quite know where this question’s coming from, why it makes him feel wistful.

“What I want most is…” Rey shakes her head, and looks even guiltier than before. “…Never mind.”

“No, no,” Poe nudges her with his foot. “You can tell me. I won’t repeat it, ever, I swear.”

She examines him, and he feels like he’s being analyzed, like he’s being judged. He felt like this one time in the past, when he met Maz Kanata – and that was only a little more terrifying than this inspection.

She finds him worthy though, apparently, because Rey’s lips twitch, and she looks around once, as though someone could possibly be listening in on this. Rey leans forward, and he matches her position, even though it makes the still-abused muscles in his lower back, muscles that never quite got over the strain of Hyperspace, whine in protest.

“If I had to pick what I wanted, more than anything else in the galaxy,” Rey bites her lip, and he tries not to let his eyes be drawn to it. “I’d want a family.”

“A family?” Poe repeats, blinking in surprise.

“Yes,” Rey whispers as though it’s shameful, as though it’s not one of the most natural things to want. “I’ve only ever wanted a family.”

Poe remembers what little he’s gleaned about her past, about her life as a slave, her abandonment on Jakku, of which she’s only ever spoken once, being sold by her own parents, a fact that makes him want to rage and scream at the uncaring universe. “But Ben, he’s like your family, right?”

Rey shakes her head and laughs oddly, her eyes too bright. She leans away – he doesn’t. “He is, and he isn’t,” she shivers then, and Poe tilts his head to look at her better in the lighting of his hallway. “Ben – well, he has his own family, doesn’t he? A mother who loves him, a father who cherishes him. And he loves them too. They haven’t always gotten along, but they’re family, and that’s – that’s sacred. Something I’ll never be part of. And it’s selfish, but I just want something to myself. A family of my own.”

“That’s not selfish,” Poe says quickly, agonizing over how much confidence she has in that opinion. “It’s not, Rey, really. It’s normal to want that.”

“Not if you’re a Jedi.” She laughs as though she’s trying to move this conversation forward, away from this, and sure enough, she flips some more switches on BB-8, and he starts to power on. Poe refuses to be knocked off track.

“And you’re sure you want to be a Jedi?” Poe asks, earnestly.

“I owe the Jedi everything.” It’s not an answer, but it’s said with terrifying finality.

Poe mulls over his response for five seconds (really, a record for him) before saying, quietly, more emotions than he can name painting his voice: “Even your freedom?”

Rey turns to him, something close to anger flashing in her typically serene eyes, but they’re interrupted by a series of chirps, and a loud _whir._

[ _Master-Poe! What have I missed?_ ]

***

Beebee takes to Rey like a fish to water, and Poe can barely begrudge it. Rey had brought him back to life, and she’s taken the time every day to practice her Binary, her head tilting and her eyes crinkling with every odd-ball comment the droid makes.

Poe shouldn’t find it so charming. And yet.

“Beebee, you cannot tell me what Poe has,” Rey instructs the droid, whose optical unit rolls back and forth between them anxiously, its round, little body rocking back and forth as it considers Rey’s command. “No matter how bad his card is.”

“My card isn’t bad,” Poe protests. “It’s not.”

“Mhm. So is it higher, or lower?” She waves her card in front of her face, making an exaggerated pout. “Higher? Or Lower?”

“Lower,” Poe declares. “Mine’s lower.”

She shows him her card, and Beebee zips around her chair excitedly.

She has Demise, which easily trumps Endurance.

***

On the eighth day of Leia-imposed-house-arrest, Rey falls asleep on the large, circular couch while an old holo-drama blares on the screen. Her feet are secured in Poe’s lap, and even when she passes the hour mark of her nap, he makes no effort to move them, even when the credits roll, and the screen cuts to black.

***

The next morning, Poe emerges from his bedroom with probably one of his worst cases of bedhead this side of thirty. He’s wearing his bathrobe open over his boxers – Rey’s peculiar disregard for the naked human form means that he doesn’t worry so much about scandalizing her, and he really is feeling lazy today – and slippers keep his feet cozy as he drags over the marble floor in his kitchen.

He pulls out a pear from his bowl of fruit, and bites into it, enjoying the crisp flavor as the sun rises behind him.

Rey walks in from her own room, and he refuses to let his eyes linger at the sliver of skin exposed when she yawns and stretches her arms over her head, her own hair only slightly mussed from sleep. She smacks her lips together, her eyes still half-open and fighting to wake up, and he can’t help but tease her.

“Late start this morning, Jedi?” He asks, taking another bite of his pear.

Rey watches the fruit in his hand, and his neck flushes as her eyes lock onto his lips as he pulls away from the fruit. He must have juice on his lip – he licks it away, and Rey’s eyes dart to the corner of the kitchen.

“Weird night,” she answers, her voice roughened adorably, and he swallows his bite of pear, swallows back whatever his stupid mind could get him in trouble with. “Had a … weird dream.”

“Oh?” Poe’s curiosity is piqued (it often is, in his defense, this has nothing to do with pretty girls standing at his kitchen counter). “Is that so?”

“Yeah.” Rey’s eyes have returned to the pear in his hand, and Poe can feel the trickle of juice as it runs from his palm to the inside of his wrist. “Really…weird.”

His brain disconnects from his common sense – fuck, they were never that good of friends anyway – and he smiles at her, smiles at her the way he’d smile at any pretty girl in a club, any handsome man at a bar.

Poe walks halfway around the island and leans against the countertop about two feet away from Rey. “You like pears?” He asks, not able to ignore the way his voice has just pitched lower.

“Yeah.” Rey’s expression is clearer than a summer sky, and her cheeks are only slightly pink, which could be explained away by her recent departure from bed. “I like most fruit, never get a lot of it at the temple, though.”

“Oh?” Poe decides to go for a little more teasing, a little more pushing of boundaries. “You want a taste?” He extends the fruit to Rey, the pear resting on his fingertips. He doesn’t even bother turning the fruit so that unbroken skin is facing her.

“Okay,” Rey’s answer is quiet, shy, and Poe’s about to call this whole thing off – gods, she’s so young, so innocent, so very much not for him, nope, off limits – when she leans in, her small, pink tongue darting out to taste the fruit.

His brain grinds to a halt and stutters back to life, comes roaring back on-line at the sight.

Rey’s small hand wraps around his wrist, not seeming to care that it’s been made sticky by the juice, and her warm, calloused fingers cause a shockwave of feeling straight to his gut. Her marvelous hazel eyes have closed, thank the gods, which means she can’t see how he’s staring at her – Poe’s trapped by her, trapped by this moment, and Rey’s teeth sink into the pear, her lips closing around the spot she’s chosen with a noise that’s going to haunt him into his grave.

She pulls back with a slightly less than graceful slurp, and her hand doesn’t leave his wrist as she savors the bite, her eyes fluttering open, and a small noise of approval rising in her throat.

Poe has always known what to say, his entire life – his career is built on his ability to pull smart-sounding phrases out of the air when he has absolutely nothing in his pocket – but he’s rendered almost speechless.

“Good?” He asks, his voice rough and completely unrecognizable.

“Really good,” Rey confirms, looking up at him through lowered lashes. A heartbeat, and another, passes, and they don’t break the eye contact. A drop of pear shines at the corner of her lush mouth, and Poe’s about to lift his hand, brush it away with his thumb, when Rey drops his wrist and stands up straight.

“I’m going to go start my meditation,” she announces, but her voice still sounds…off. Poe still feels like he’s been ejected from an X-Wing in Hyperspace, so he doesn’t call her on it.

Her parting words of “ _thank you, Senator_ ,” do nothing to help him unfreeze from the moment they shared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Senator.
> 
>  
> 
> (Also, in the game klikklak, you're supposed to spend ten minutes insulting your adversary and/or try to determine what kind of card they have, high or low. Then, you take bets on whether or not your card is higher/lower. I tried to follow the value of the cards in sabacc, but my star wars EU knowledge isn't super, so if it's not right...well...it's an AU?)


	4. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe is cleared to leave his apartment, and he experiences some interesting dreams. 
> 
> Rey's dreams are less pleasant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for the second of poe's dreams: it a little smutty. The dream will be in italics (and so will the first, non-smutty one) if you want to skip it.
> 
> warning for character vomiting after waking up from a violent dream

_He’s back on Yavin, he knows that much._

_It’s not the trees, although they’re pretty distinctive. It’s not the soft, distant fall of rain, always rustling through leaves on some part of the moon’s surface. It’s not even the scent of koyo melons, heady and thick on the breeze._

_No. He knows because he’s home. There’s no place in the galaxy that feels like Yavin._

_He knows if he turns around and faces south, he’ll see his pa’s farm. If he turns east, he’ll find the Force Tree, the ever-breathing, ever-growing symbol of his mother’s love. West – well, that’s the Woolamander’s temple._

_But he’s facing north. True North, judging by the cascade of stars that shift in the heavens above, their light touching his skin, washing it clean, touching his skin, finding him worthy no matter the years and miles that separate him from this rock. The croak and call of cicadas rising and falling through the night surround him as he takes a step forward, and then another, north bound, north by north by north –_

_He reaches the edge of the property, and instead of the thickset growth of trees leading to the great temple, he finds a clearing, where the light and the Force surge in greater symphony than before, calling his name, calling for Poe, Poe, little lost boy who loved too hard, here is where you’re loved, here is where you –_

_A woman with unbound hair stands in the clearing, cloaked in what seems to be starlight. She wears a crown of flowers, her garment diaphanous and yet, humble. She sings with the Force, and a sadness Poe has never been able to name threatens to drown him, drown him in this woman’s grief._

_He walks to where she stands, and he waits for her to turn. She doesn’t, merely finishes her song and remains gazing starward._

_She always did love the stars._

_“Why are you sad?” Poe asks. It’s as though he doesn’t open his mouth to speak. But he knows she hears. She always does._

_“I’m not.” She laughs, and the sound vibrates with the stars above, their own light intensifying with the peals of her joy sounding like a bell in the clearing. “Silly old pilot.”_

_“I’m not a pilot,” he laughs. It’s an old argument._

_“Farmer, then.”_

_“Not that either.”_

_“You could be.” She shakes her hair out, and Poe catches the scent of honey, koyo, home. “You should be.”_

_“Could, should,” Poe shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. He’s wearing a loose white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a brown pair of pants, boots. They’re his work clothes from a lifetime ago. His chest is warm with the echo of her laughter from a moment before, and when his hand reaches up to clasp at his necklace, his good luck charm, it meets with nothing at all._

_It’s an old habit, one he has yet to break. He isn’t going to find the ring there. Not when it’s exactly where it’s supposed to be._

_“Do you regret it?” He asks, unafraid of the answer because he knows it. He already knows the answer, but gods, he loves to ask._

_“I could never regret you,” she says, having heard his real question. She turns around then, and reaches a slender hand towards him. “Pilot, farmer, Senator – any life, and I would have chosen you. I will choose you, every time.”_

_He clasps her hand in his, and steps towards her, and they drift together as irresistibly as ever. She’s pulled the moon down to carry its light in her eyes, and Poe finds himself adrift, not the first time, in them._

_Wide, hazel eyes who look at him as though he holds the world in his hands._

_It’s when he pulls Rey in and presses his hands to her back, presses her into him as though remembering that yes, he’s allowed to keep her, that he realizes – he might be doing just that._

Poe wakes up with his eyes wet and punches his pillow into an unrecognizable shape before burying his face into it with a muffled groan.

[ _Master-Poe_?] BB-8 has rolled forward and is examining him with great concern. [ _Are you alright_?]

“I’m fine, buddy.” Poe manages to offer an awkward thumbs-up to his still-worried droid. “Go back to sleep.” His droid beeps anxiously and rolls away to its charging station, and Poe returns to burying his face in his pillow, desperately pretending he didn’t just dream … _that._

***

It’s easy enough to forget the dream, or at the very least dismiss it, in the light of morning.

She’s the only person he’s seen in two weeks, after all. Perfectly normal that his psyche would be dredging up pictures of home, combining them with his desperate, deep-seated wish for a partner, and then throw the only girl he’s seen ~~or felt anything for~~ in a long time into the mix.

It’s also easy to forget the dream when he realizes that Rey the Jedi Knight is a kriffing Karkoradan.

“Mmm,” Rey hums, dragging the large koyo melon Poe had _stupidly_ offered up towards her on the table. “This is my best haul yet, huh Beebee?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Poe mutters. His holo-pad pings with an incoming message, and Poe tries to lean forward from where he’s sitting on the floor to grab it. Rey laughs at him, a bright, happy sound that sounds all too familiar to his dream, and he’s blushing – and she _really_ could be using the Force to push this holo-pad towards him, but no, she just wants to torture him – when Beebee-Ate trills a question towards the Jedi.

“Oh, I must have learned how to play klikklak when I was twelve years old,” Rey says airily, waving her hand at the droid. Poe freezes in what he’s doing and stares at her. Rey’s leaning against the couch, the picture of casual, one leg bent and pulled towards her chest, her tunic a grey that manages to look warm –

“What did you say?” Poe growls. Rey looks up, looking not even a little guilty.

“I said, I learned how to play this game when I was twelve. Used to win portions off other scavengers.” She grins at him, still unapologetic. “Why – did you think you had actually taught me how to play?”

Poe stares at her, shocked, angry, and more than a little impressed. “You’ve won _every hand_!” He exclaims. “I thought it was just ridiculous Jedi luck! I thought you were using the Force!”

“That’s not how the Force works,” Rey says primly, holding her – _his_! – Koyo melon in her hands.

“Yeah, yeah, and that’s my melon!” Poe says, reaching out for it, forgetting his holo-pad for the time being. Rey shrieks with laughter and stands quickly, and so does Poe. “Don’t make me chase you,” he warns her, and Rey sticks her tongue out at him. He reaches forward again, breathless from laughter, and Rey launches herself backwards, definitely, definitely using the Force as she clears the back of the couch and lands on her feet still facing him.

“Come and get it,” she mocks, and then she turns tail and runs.

And Poe chases. Oh, does he chase.

Their laughter rebounds throughout the apartment that not even three months ago had seemed so impossibly lonely, and BB-8 follows, whirring wildly, sometimes cheering on Rey, less often cheering on Poe, and he roars, “Traitor!” at his fair weather droid.

He chases her into the kitchen and takes advantage of the marble island to lull her into a sense of security – when she comes around the side, he darts backwards, his fingertips barely catching on her tunic. Rey howls with laughter, the melon still clutched in her hands – and this is _ridiculous,_ why is he doing this? He’d give her every melon his dad sent if she asked – and then they're slip-sliding in their stockinged feet towards the front entry hall.

Poe sees his opportunity as the front rug nears her, and he throws himself forward, taking advantage of his broader frame to snag her around the waist and yank her towards the floor.

“Thief!” He proclaims, tugging at the melon. “Mine!”

“No!” Rey says, almost sobbing from laughter. “I earned it!’

“You cheated!” Poe’s still laughing too, and his side hurts, and he can’t remember ever being this happy, which again, is ridiculous, because she _is_ a cheater, and this _is_ his melon, which he _would_ be happy to share.

Still, he tugs at it, and in doing so, has to brace his knees on the floor, on either side of Rey’s legs. She tugs back, and he’s well aware that she could use the Force and throw him out his own damn window, but she’s holding back, at least on the mystic side of things. Eventually, he wins, the shape of the fruit working to his advantage, and he pretends to hoot in victory, holding the melon aloft over his head. Rey makes a desperate grab for it, surging up from the ground, her hands extended, and Poe shouts “Never! Beebee! Catch!” and hurls the melon clear across the apartment.

Rey sits backwards, her weight on her elbows, and heaves for breath, laughing growing slower and slower, but the mirth still full-blown in her eyes.

Poe sits back on his own heels, his knees still bracketing her hips, and wipes his face with his hand, smiling at her, random giggles still tearing loose from his chest.

“You’re absurd,” he says, fondness overcoming him because it always does with her, it’s always growing, it’s always finding new ways to fill up the parts of himself that he’d forgotten were missing.

“We can both be absurd,” Rey notes with a regal nod of her head. Poe nods to accept her premise, and without thinking, crosses the few feet of space between them to tuck a strand of sweaty hair behind her ear.

Her breath catches, and he’d be a fool not to notice it. He’d be a fool to deny what _this_ suddenly feels like, Rey sprawled out underneath him, her eyes wide, her pupils blown, her bottom lip between her teeth, face ruddy – he’s kneeling over her, his knees on either side of her, and every passing second, every breath they take (their breath synced at a point he can’t remember) bringing them closer and closer together.

“Poe?” Rey whispers, and then he’s looking into her eyes which is a mistake because he’ll never pull out of this dive, he’ll never want to, he just needs to bridge this last distance, and her cheek is soft under his hand –

There’s a knock at his front door, and Poe startles backwards so hard he may as well have been ejected from a cockpit. “Who is it?” He shouts, smoothing his hair out frantically. His hand goes to his hip, where his blaster is usually holstered. Rey stands in front of him, and he doesn’t know when she got up from the floor, but her lightsaber is in her hand. It’s not on, but she’s holding it defensively, and her hand is reaching back.

She hadn’t stopped to tuck her hair back into place, her clothes are impossibly mussed, and that’s the detail Poe’s focusing on when Leia Organa walks into his apartment.

“Senator,” Poe squeaks, remembering to bow. Rey doesn’t move, and Leia looks at her disheveled appearance, and then at Poe, who can only imagine how debauched he looks (his body still hasn’t quite settled down, gods, this is a nightmare, right?).

“Senator,” Leia answers, tilting her head in an ironic bow. “And Rey, so good to see you.” She walks forward and clasps the young woman’s hands. “And what were you two up to just now?”

Poe wonders if his floor will swallow him whole if he asks nicely enough. Maybe Beebee can zap him into unconsciousness.

“I won a koyo melon off of Poe in a card game!” Rey says, a triumphant picture of innocence. Leia nods as though in understanding. “And then he tried to take it back!”

“Did he now?” The look Leia serves him over Rey’s shoulder is in a word, terrifying. “Well, Rey, my son is desperate to talk to you about something or other, so why don’t you run along and debrief with him, and I’ll talk to Poe in here?”

“Of course!” Rey bounces off like the chipper, sweet thing she usually is, and Poe waits to be called out for the dirty, old man that he is.

Leia looks at him for a minute, and then sighs heavily.

“I leave you two alone for _two weeks_ , and a koyo melon is the best you could do?” Poe stares at her, dumbstruck, and Leia shakes her head. “Pilots these days.”

 

***

 

Leia, as it turned out, had come over to tell him his imprisonment was briefly suspended. No new whispers had surfaced in the past two weeks, and, “You’re popular enough that people are starting to miss seeing you.”

Poe had grinned at that, and with Leia’s blessing (and a few credits of the First Senator’s shoved into Rey’s hands), they had departed for a short trip to an open-air market.

“Gods, I missed the outdoors,” Poe groans the second they walk out of his building. “Fresh air!”

“Fresh?” Rey wrinkles her nose. “It smells like ozone… and sadness.”

“Snob.” Poe jostles her good-naturedly, and Rey snorts and shoves him back. They walk in companionable silence to the market, and Poe can’t help but notice that their gaits adjust quickly to match each other. Rey’s scanning around them constantly, so she doesn’t notice the weird little smile he gets from them just walking next to each other. Gods. He’s a mess.

Once they reach the market, Poe trots off to barter for more produce – he thinks he needs more fruit in his apartment, pears, definitely – and when he comes back, he feels his eyebrows disappear into his hair.

Rey’s surrounded by young children with filthy faces. Urchins, someone less kind, someone Core World would call them. They’re all clamoring for her attention, and Rey looks absolutely delighted to talk to them – although there’s a hint of sadness in her eyes that Poe thinks you’d need a bit of her history to really see. In the twenty seconds it takes for him to walk over to her, Rey has knelt down amongst the children, pulled out her credits, and passed them out evenly among the group.

They run shrieking past him, and Rey smiles fondly after them.

“Was that all your money?” Poe asks, unable to keep the incredulous tone out of his voice.

“Yep!” Rey beams at him. “I don’t really use money. And they needed it, they told me.”

 “Oh, gods. They were scamming you, sweetheart,” Poe says with a groan, unaware of the slip in endearment until it was too late, the endearment he’s been fighting back for weeks now.

“I don’t care,” Rey says calmly, standing up fluidly. “If a child that young is scamming someone, they’re doing it for a reason. And if I have the ability to make their lives a little easier? I’ll do it every time.”

He stares at her then, down here on the shitty, grimy ground floor of Chandrila, the strange blue-green light of the atmosphere playing on her face, making her seem otherworldly. She’s brighter than Yavin, brighter than any star he’s seen, and he opens his mouth to tell her that, but an orphan from before comes barreling back.

“I fo’got!” he shrieks, throwing his arms around Rey’s middle before either of them could react. “Thank you!”

“You’re very welcome,” Rey says sweetly, her hand cupping his dirty cheek. “Do you have enough to buy some food, now?” The boy nods eagerly, hugs Rey tightly for another second, which she returns happily, and then he turns and sprints away through the market, waving at his friends who follow him to a stall. “Still sure it’s a scam?” She asks Poe off-handedly, scanning around briefly before waving him to proceed to the next street over.

Poe isn’t sure of a lot of things anymore.

***

  _He’s on Yavin, and the galaxy sings around him._

_He walks through the fields of melon trees on his pa’s farm, but they’re not melon trees._

_Each one glows with the Force, the branches entwined and reaching skyward, lighting his path as he walks towards his destination._

_She wears a tunic tonight, and more traditional robes. Her hair is caught in a braid, a ceremonial one that his own mother wore thirty years ago._

_When she turns to greet him, he walks in as close as he can, and while his eyes close, he loses himself in the taste of her, the most familiar and exhilarating thing in the galaxy._

_They fall together, in the field blessed by the Force, and he doesn’t see it clearly, but he can feel how he begins to lose control inside her. She sits herself on him, her head thrown back on his shoulder, her breasts heavy and yet delicate in his hands as he reaches around to pull at them. When it’s not enough, she shifts to her hands and knees, and he spirals and twists inside her, and again, it’s not clear, it comes in waves and pieces, but he covers her now-bare back in kisses while the heat builds and rises inside and around him._

_“I love you,” he moans brokenly into her spine. “I’m yours.”_

_“Yours,” she whispers, pushing back on her hands. The world screams with a brightness almost too perfect to accept, and he groans against her shoulder blade while she whispers, “Yours, yours, yours."_

_“I want to give you everything,” Poe says, needy, desperate, the pace faster without either of them seeming to move. This is everything, this is perfect, this can’t be real, it isn’t, he can tell it isn’t because something outside of this calls to him, tells him to leave, but he can’t, because, “Let me give you everything.”_

_“You already have,” Rey answers, and his hand finds the ring on her finger, and their hands entwine on her abdomen as she rises to her knees, and he goes with her._

[ _MASTER-POE_!]

“What?” Poe demands, thrashing awake. “Gods, _what_?” He wills his cock to go down because he needs to touch himself, but he definitely will _not_ touch himself to the thought of the Jedi he has no business dreaming of.

[Savior-Rey is exhibiting distress] Beebee eyes him oddly. […in a way…different to your current distress]

“I will retire you to the scrap pile,” Poe grumbles, sitting upright and wiping his face. “What kinda distress, buddy, is she sick?” She _had_ eaten way too much at dinner, after all.

[She is walking around the apartment], Beebee reports. Poe shrugs because she’s welcome to, and if she wants to be alone – [Crying. But my sensors indicate that she still sleeps.]

“She’s sleep-walking?” Poe frowns. “Has she done that before?” When BB-8 trills in the negative, Poe yanks a shirt on, and heads to the door in his slippers.

He can hear her before he can see her – and when he comes to the living room, he has a feeling that something is very, very wrong.

Rey stands in the moonlight, (thankfully) wearing a sleep tunic. Her hair is loose but messy around her shoulders, and her face twitches with anxiety while she whispers to herself.

“Rey?” Poe takes a step towards her. “You awake?”

[She is not!] Beebee beeps quietly, and Poe shushes him and points to his room. The droid rolls away with a huff.

“Alright.” Poe smiles at her with intense worry. “I’ll be here if you need me, sweetheart.” He’s about to walk away when she whimpers, and his foot freezes. “Rey?”

“No.” She shakes her head and claps her hands over her ears.

“Rey?” Poe repeats, and then she starts screaming. His heart nearly stops, and when Beebee comes whirling out of the room, Poe points his finger at the door. “Stay in there!” He barks, and he doesn’t wait to see how irate that makes the droid before he turns and runs for Rey, who’s repeating a single word.

“Eject!” Rey is screaming, over and over again. “Gods – eject! No!—” Her muscles seize up, and she collapses, topping over, and Poe staggers to catch her.

“Rey?” Poe sweeps a hand over the side of her face – you shouldn’t wake sleepwalkers, he knows that, but she’s clammy and her eyes are rolling, and _is she even asleep?_ – “Rey, wake up!”

“No –” She thrashes in his arms, and he has to fall to the floor, unable to keep her upright any longer. She shakes in his arms as though she’ll fall apart. “Anton!”

Poe stares at her in horror, hand frozen where it’s cradling her cheek. “What?” He whispers. Rey merely whimpers, lost to the trance again, her eyes now wide open, staring into space over Poe’s shoulder. She’s mouthing something, and it’s the word, _eject, eject, eject,_ over and over again, barely a whisper of sound escaping her lips.

“Wake _up_!” He shakes her, hard, harder than he means to, but the name has him recoiling in panic, and he needs answers, damnit, not more fear—

Her head snaps back from the force of his movement, and she gasps for air, her eyes coming back into focus. Rey retches, and he barely gets her on her side in time. She gags until nothing else can come up, and Poe smooths her hair out of her face.

She’s trembling, and Beebee whines anxiously from the entrance to the sitting area. “Stay with her, buddy,” Poe orders, and the droid chirps, rolling forward. He dashes to the kitchen and gets a glass of water, returning to Rey’s side in less than thirty seconds.

“Here,” he soothes, helping her upright. Rey’s arm trembles where it braces against the floor, and she leans on Poe’s shoulder for support. “There you go, that’s right,” he praises gently, a hand stroking down her spine as she sips the water. She coughs lightly, and Poe moves the glass out of the way, having never let the bottom of it go. Rey isn’t sick again though, and she gestures to take the water back a moment later.

Once the glass is empty, Rey wraps an arm around her abdomen. “Sorry,” she whispers, cheeks pink as she stares at the floor. “I don’t know what—what happened?”

“You don’t know?” Poe asks, dumbfounded and more than a little wary.

“I mean, I imagine I got sick,” Rey laughs weakly and nods at the puddle in front of her. “I’ll clean that up, I’m sorry for making a mess—”

“Don’t apologize,” Poe rushes to say. He squeezes her shoulder softly. “That’s the least of my—you really don’t remember what just happened?”

“I remember falling asleep.” Rey’s hazel eyes are clearer than the summer sky. “And then I had a dream, and…” Her cheeks flare pinker, and Poe waits for her to finish. “…and then I woke up out here.”

“What did you dream about?” Poe asks. He shouldn’t be pushing her, not when her skin is still green and her eyes still bleary – but she’d said _his name._ “Rey, tell me.” It comes out angrier than he means, and she flinches. He’ll hate himself in the morning. He doesn’t exactly have the time or energy right now. “ _Rey._ ”

She blinks back tears – and no, he definitely has the energy right now to hate himself, and she looks at the floor. “You.” She says it with shame, with embarrassment.

“Me?” Poe feels confusion wash clear down his back. “Why would you be dreaming about me?” Rey looks up at him, her typically wide eyes clouded with unshed tears. “Why – you said a name – what do you remember about the dream?”

“I don’t remember,” Rey croaks, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. “Poe, please, I truly don’t—”

“Well, try,” he snaps. And it’s harsher than he’s ever sounded with her – with anyone who wasn’t an opposing senator, honestly, in the last ten years – and it’s too much, too hard, for something in her face shutters closed, and it’s like the small, perpetual light he’s coming to associate with _Rey_ goes right out. He opens his mouth to apologize, but Rey’s eyes have already squeezed shut, and she takes a deep, unsteady breath.

“I was dreaming about …” she says, shakily, and he cocks his head and looks at her intently. She doesn’t elaborate. “But – then it changed. I don’t remember what happened after that, but I remember being scared.”

She’s still trembling, so Poe nods and holds his arms out to her. “Sorry,” he whispers. Rey shuffles over until she’s against his chest, and he rests his chin on top of her head. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

“S’okay,” she mumbles, already falling back asleep. Maybe she’d never even really been that awake, something that makes the guilt in his gut churn all the more.

But it’s combating something much stronger: fear.

He wishes he knew why the strongest Force-User he’s ever met just screamed the name of his first love.

Anton. _Anton Muran_.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!
> 
> ???
> 
> thanksforreading


	5. Mistakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe makes a series of errors when dealing with his confusing feelings for his bodyguard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:   
> *Poe can be a serious ass in this chapter. He's hurt and confused and frustrated, and he knows he makes mistakes (hence the title of the chapter). It wouldn't be a star-crossed lovers, forbidden love, angst fest without some flawed heroes.  
> *Poe has a brief, sexual encounter with someone who isn't Rey.   
> *Rey gets drunk for the first time (but nothing happens to her! So don't worry).

“Thanks for taking my call.” Poe smiles genuinely at the holo-figure in front of him.

“I always have time for you, Senator Dameron, you know that.”

“You look good,” he says. And it’s the damn truth. Anton Muran’s wearing his flight uniform, and no matter how long it’s been since Muran and Poe were an _us,_ Poe finds himself more than a little interested in how the uniform hangs on Muran’s tall frame.

“Thank you.” Muran pretends to preen, stretching his long limbs out and pretending to flex, and Poe laughs, a ragged but real sound. This doesn’t hurt nearly as much as the last time they had spoken, when Poe had said some foolish things, and Muran had held firm and realistic. “But I don’t think you took time out of your schedule just to compliment me, Poe. What’s happened?”

Direct, professional, smart. All things Poe had been wild about at the Academy, Anton seemingly his perfect balance at the time. No wonder he’d been so stupid in love with him.

 _I think the Jedi I’m currently living with had a vision of your death,_ would be the honest answer, but Poe shrugs evasively. “I … hear things. They make me nervous. I wanted to see if you were alright,” _sometimes I have nightmares that we’re flying together, and I can’t do anything to save you, or Kare, or Snap._ “Have things been normal recently?”

“Smooth as it can be.” Muran frowns thoughtfully and looks over his shoulder. It’s an encrypted line, but there’s no guarantee no one’s listening in at the barracks. “Some oddities out in the Western Reaches, but we’ve been doing some checks, and nothing’s been declared official yet.”

“Oddities?” Poe frowns as well. “What does that mean?” He leans in to look closer at the projection of Anton’s handsome face.

“It means,” Muran lowers his voice a little more. “That there are … rumors. Of pirates who don’t act like pirates, stealing ships that wouldn’t normally interest marauders, causing havoc on shipping lines…typically the ones that connect the Outer Rim.”

“What?” Poe rubs his jaw tiredly and considers this. “We haven’t heard anything about that. If they’re mobilizing the Navy—”

“They’re not.” Muran studies Poe’s face for a long moment. “They’re sending us out on smaller missions, just one or two squadrons at time. By the time we get there, there’s either no evidence of a ship that could have sent a distress signal, or there’s remains that could have been caused by asteroids or space debris. It’s…odd.”

“Yeah.” Poe clears his throat. “The Outer Rim, though. I wonder if the crime syndicates have anything to do with it.”

“Eh, they usually do.” Muran shakes his head and then smiles at Poe, a smile that would have had his heart fluttering ten years ago. Now it just makes him feel warm, and a little more whole than usual. “I’m glad you called though. I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Poe says honestly. “It’s been crazy on my end. I actually got assigned a Jedi bodyguard.”

“I bet you loved that,” Muran laughs openly, a happy, bright sound that transforms his typically stern face entirely. Poe laughs too.

“She’s not bad, not at all what you’d expect.” Poe waves a hand. “The opposite, really. She’s…she’s really something else.”

Muran smirks at him. “Uh oh.”

“Hush.” Poe fights the urge to stick his tongue out at his friend and former love who can unfortunately read him like a holo-novel.

“Can I meet her?” Muran stands on tiptoes and pretends that he’s peering over Poe’s shoulder through the holo. “Is she there?”

“She’s meditating,” Poe answers huffily. Muran gives him an impertinent hand gesture. “Rude.”

“I do need to tell you something, though,” Muran clears his throat and folds his hands in front of his body. He’s standing at attention. This can’t be good. “Things have gotten really serious, between Iolo and I.”

“Oh?” Poe blinks slowly, comprehending that statement. “How serious?”

“We’re getting married,” Muran’s face is impassive, and Poe knows he’s reading his expression. He strangely doesn’t have to control it at all. He smiles slowly, a little painfully, but it’s a real smile.

“That’s great,” he says. It’s not terribly enthusiastic, but the floor’s staying in place, not falling out from underneath him, and there’s no urge to cry. It’s almost as though – “I’m happy for you. Really. Both of you.”

“Thank you.” Muran smiles and looks at the floor in front of him, an odd show of shyness in the calm, confident man.

“Arana though,” Poe leans back in his chair and smirks. “He’s a little young for you, isn’t he?”

“Oh, kark you,” Muran says good-naturedly, and they rib each other playfully until the call ends.

Right before they disconnect, Muran asks if he’d come to the ceremony, when it happens.

“Just give me a time and place,” Poe says. “I’ll be there.” Muran’s answering smile is relieved, and Poe’s smile stays in place even when Muran vanishes from sight.

At twenty-one, Poe was just barely one step away from doodling _Mr. Poe Muran_ onto all of his notes at the Academy. He and Muran had shared so many firsts together (for instance, Muran had gotten his first and only demerit at Poe’s side, when their superior officer discovered that they’d pushed their beds together in the night – and he’d been utterly unamused at how unbothered by it Poe was, as Poe nuzzled into his neck to press soothing kisses there after they’d been caught), and when they’d ended things after Poe left to become a politician, well. It had felt like he’d lost an entire life, a life that would have been him and Muran, ‘til death do they part.

Now, Muran’s going to start that life with another person, and Poe’s smiling, honestly smiling for him, sitting in his chair in his darkened office. 

***

The next day’s vote is hell on Poe’s nerves, and it’s with no shortage of eagerness that he asks Rey if she’ll accompany him to a bar that evening.

“A bar?” Rey’s nose quirks up in a way he shouldn’t find so damn cute. He fights the urge to tap her nose with his finger. He wants to keep his finger.

“Yes!” Poe grins at her and wheedles with absolutely no regard for dignity. “Pleeeease?”

“Fine.” Rey rolls her eyes and relents. “We can go. But only for a few hours.”

They arrive at the bar a little after six (on the way, Rey convinces Poe to buy her some street food, not that it really took any convincing at all. He doesn’t think he’s physically capable of saying ‘no’ to her. _Can I have something to eat_? Yes. _Can I have your very last credit?_ Yes. _Can you jump off this ledge for me?_ Yes.)

He’s about five drinks in when he realizes Rey hasn’t moved from her vigilant position in the corner, her large eyes unblinking as she studies the chaos of the room. Poe stumbles over, drink still in hand, having already decided to change this.

“Hey!” He shouts.

“Hi.” Rey smiles at him and then returns to assessing the room.

“Dance with me,” Poe urges her, grabbing her hands and trying to tug her away from the wall.

She laughs lightly and releases him, shaking her head. “I can’t!” She manages to shout over the almighty din in the bar.

“C’mon, live a little.” Poe twists his hips to the beat of the music and bites his lip suggestively. It’d work on anyone else – and, Rey does look a little tempted – but she shakes her head again.

“I’d like for you to live,” Rey jokes, shooing him away. “And I can best ensure that from over here.”

“I don’t think I’m going to get murdered in here.” Poe rolls his eyes. “I would have already, right? Take a break and let loose, sweetheart.” There’s that damn word again, the one that’s getting harder and harder to take back. His tongue’s been loosened by too many Alderaan Sunrises.

“No,” Rey smiles more ruefully this time, and Poe knows he won’t ask again. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not that pushy. “People are already staring at us.”

Poe looks around, incredulously, and sure enough, more than one patron of this less than stellar establishment is looking their way. But they aren’t looking at him. He double checks a few times, looks at Rey, back over at the guys he’s pretty sure are pirates near the opposite wall, looks back at Rey, and then over to a woman in a low cut dress, over to a gaggle of wealthy boys who aren’t quite men who are clearly out on the town. And he laughs.

“They’re looking at you,” he points out.

“Why would they be looking at me?” Rey’s nose wrinkles again, and Poe takes a second to polish off his drink. He hands the glass to a nearby waitress and returns his gaze to her, giving her a full, ornery smirk. “I’m not drawing attention to myself.” She shifts nervously on the wall, her tunic almost the same color as the paint behind her.

“Oh gods,” Poe groans. “Rey, they’re staring at you because you’re gorgeous.”

“I’m – I’m what?” Rey stares at him in surprise. But, he’s said too much, and he smiles at her one last time before disappearing back into the crowd and losing himself in the throng of dancing bodies. He emerges half an hour later, sweatier than before – he’s pretty sure his shirt wasn’t this unbuttoned when he started dancing, but he can’t remember if it was the handsy Twi’lek, or the cute, dimpled farmboy from Nakadia who had loosened it to this point.

Rey’s still on the wall, but she looks deeply uncomfortable. His hackles raise immediately, and he pushes through the packed room to get to her. One of the wealthy kids he’d noticed earlier (yeah, he’s a kid, he can’t be older than twenty one, but he’s huge in a ‘I was well-fed my whole life’ kind of way) is looming over her, and Rey’s clearly trying to ignore him.

Poe’s more than a little buzzed at this point, so he’s more obnoxious than he needs to be when he sidles up next to Rey and squints at whoever the hell this is. The kid’s saying, “…wait ‘til you see it, you’re going to love it, just come this way, baby—” and then Poe sees red because this karking asshole puts his arm around her shoulders, and Rey stiffens further.

“Hey,” Poe snaps. “I don’t think she’s interested.”

“Yeah?” The boy jeers at him. “What would you know about that, old man?”

“Old?” Poe splutters for a second. He’s thirty-two for gods’ sake, not _dead._ He shakes his head and smirks at him. “You probably should stop touching her before you lose all your teeth.”

“Are you gonna make me?” The kid sneers, and Rey gives Poe a look of absolute irritation.

“No.” Poe shakes his head and leans up against the wall to smirk at this absolute idiot. “But she will.”

The kid snorts in laughter, and then his face twists in pain as Rey grabs his hand from her shoulder and bends it backwards at the wrist, spinning out from underneath his arm, and using the momentum to push him into the wall.

“What the fuck?” The kid’s definitely going to start some trouble, and Rey does something she never has before. She moves her robe to the side and shows a flash of her lightsaber, her face a mixture of cold fury and amusement. “Oh – _shit_ – I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know—”

“Learn how to read a room,” Poe snaps. Then, he taps Rey on the shoulder, and she looks at him, her robes falling back into place, and a serene smile spreading across her freckled cheeks. “Wanna head back?”

“Sounds lovely,” Rey doesn’t miss a beat, just links her arm through his, and they exit the bar without further incident.

Rey’s driving the speeder back, and the cool wind on his face is starting to snap him out of his tipsy state, but his tongue is still looser than normal. “Why didn’t you want to dance?” He asks, unable to stop it from slipping out.

“I told you,” Rey spares him a brief glance while they zip towards his building. “I had to focus on keeping you alive.”

“I don’t believe you.” Poe grins at her, and Rey ignores him for the time being so she can dock the speeder. Once they step out of the vehicle though, he’s back to his usual nonsense. “So why didn’t you dance?”

“I’ve never danced before.” Rey stares at the ground while they walk, refusing to meet his eyes. “…I wouldn’t know how.”

“What?” Poe stops and tugs on her hand before they enter the door to the building. “Rey, I woulda shown you how.”

“You wouldn’t have laughed at me?” Her eyes slant to the side nervously, and he sees her biting her lip.

“Never,” Poe swears. “I’d never laugh at you over something like that.” Rey nods, looking a little less self-conscious, and Poe tucks a finger under her chin. She looks at him with bright eyes, and he makes another oath he has no business making. “I’ll take you dancing sometime, sweetheart. Show you how, nice and proper.”

“Yeah?” Rey smiles and then catches herself, her eyes darting around the landing pad. “We should get inside.” He allows her to pull him into the safety of the building, and they both greet his typical security team stationed on his floor.

When they enter the apartment, he makes a beeline for the liquor cabinet. “Want to drink?” He asks, pouring a healthy amount of Corellain whiskey into a tumbler. He pulls another one out preemptively.

“I’ve never had a drink, either,” Rey says, laughing nervously. “There are a lot of things I haven’t tried.” Poe swallows against a comment that would get him slapped or thrown across the room and wordlessly offers her a shot. Rey takes it and studies the amber liquid suspiciously before downing the glass’s contents.

“Ugh!” Rey makes a face and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Poe starts to giggle, unable to stop himself. “It’s not funny – stop it! That was gross! People drink this for fun?”

“It gets better,” Poe insists, taking her glass and filling it again. “Usually around the third or fourth try.”

“I don’t know if I want to wait that long.” Rey makes a face and downs that shot too, only coughing slightly when she sets the glass down on the table.

They end up on the floor, Rey’s feet up on the couch near his head, talking aimlessly about Yavin 4, stories about the farm and his father, about hot-wiring speeders and learning to fly, and of course, about the moon itself.

“Does it really rain every day?” Rey sounds wistful, and Poe smiles down at her, the handle of liquor now loose in his hand.

“Yeah.” He pours another glass and shakes his head. “Nothing like it. Greenest place in the galaxy.”

“I love green,” Rey sighs, and then she hiccups. Adorably.

“You drunk, little Jedi?” Poe asks affectionately.

“N-no,” Rey hiccups again. “Okay. Yeah. Little drunk.” She pinches her fingers together as though demonstrating a very short distance. “Little bit.”

“Mhm.” Poe smiles at her fondly, and helps her sit upright, her body seemingly heavier than normal, judging by the way she groans in exasperation, rubbing her head. “Dizzy?”

“Very dizzy,” Rey confirms, smiling blearily at him. Her eyes are still that same miraculous shade of green and brown, and her freckles aren’t diminished in the slightest by the flush on her cheeks. “Bed?”

“Bed.” Poe stands, much more in control of his facilities than she is, and helps her get to her feet. “Up you go.” He steadies her and smiles sweetly, and Rey’s staring at his mouth in a way he’s hoping he’s not imagining, in a way he’s praying he’s imagining. She sways dangerously, cutting his line of thought, and he scoops her up into his arms without waiting a beat.

“My hero,” Rey jokes, her nose pressed into his neck. He counts backwards from fifty while he walks, each number a reason why this is such a very bad idea. “You’re not what I expected,” she says shyly as he walks into her small room. A collection of books is stacked in the corner, and there’s a pallet set out for meditation. Other than that, the room looks the same as it had when no one was occupying it, and it makes him feel oddly lonely when he lowers her to the bed.

“No?” Poe loosens her arms from around her neck and sets them down gently next to her head, and he pulls the blanket up to her chin. “How so?”

Rey sits upright, and he pulls back slightly to give her room. She studies him as though she can see right to the core of him (and maybe she can), and Poe waits for her to talk, strangely anxious through his own buzz. “You’re a good person, Poe Dameron,” she says after a moment. “Even if you don’t always think so.”

“Yeah?” He smiles at her, not believing her assessment. He’s too much of an ass for that to be true.

“Yeah.” She looks at her hands then, and her next question is very timid. “Have you ever been in love?”

An odd question, but it’s her first time being drunk, after all. He remembers his own strange, teenage musings when he’d gotten into the hullstripper back on Yavin. “Yes,” he says honestly. “Once. A while ago.”

“And how did it end?” Rey asks, and then a single tear falls out of her eye. “What happened when you were in love?”

He’s about to answer when she says, almost to herself, “Master Ben says that love is the most dangerous thing in the galaxy.” Her eyes are luminous, captivating when she looks at him again. “Especially when you lose it. Do you think that’s true?”

“I think it can be true,” Poe murmurs. She’s pulling him in better than any tractor beam, any gravitational field. He can’t look away, no matter how intense this line of questioning is, no matter how much his brain is screaming at him to put a stop to it. “I think people can do stupid things when they’re in love. And that can cause problems. But—” he clears his throat and squeezes his hands together to stop from reaching out and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “But I think there’s nothing more beautiful than love. My parents were in love, and sure, my dad lost my mom, but you can ask him yourself. He wouldn’t change a thing about it. He was happy for every second he shared with her.”

“Are you happy?” Rey asks, another painful question he should avoid.

“Sometimes.” They’re less than a foot apart now, Rey’s lower half still under the blankets, Poe perched on the side of her bed, falling into each other. “Happier than I thought I would be.”

“Oh.” Rey’s eyes flicker down, and heat surges in his gut. “Can I ask another question?”

“You’re full of them tonight,” he teases gently. “But yes, go ahead.”

Her words are slightly slurred when she speaks, which makes his answer easier. “Will you kiss me?”

Poe shakes his head ruefully. “No.” She pulls back, looking disappointed, and the spell that had fallen over them breaks somewhat. “Not right now.” Not like this.

She nods miserably, apparently not having heard the second half of his answer, and lies down once more; he pulls the blanket up to her chin again and strokes a hand along her hair. “Goodnight, Jedi.”

He stands and walks out of the room, turning the lights off. When he does, he hears, “Goodnight, Senator.” And it takes a gargantuan effort not to turn around and crawl into bed behind her, to hold her until she never sounds that sad again.

***

The next morning is a little awkward when he walks into the kitchen and finds Rey already standing there, dressed for the day. He smiles tightly at her and prepares his cup of caf. When he turns around, she’s still standing there nervously.

“Good morning,” he greets her, having had his first sip of caf, and feeling slightly more human. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful.” His laugh is genuine in response to the face she pulls. “You?”

“Eh, I’m more used to it, I think.” He taps his fingers on his counter for a moment before Rey speaks again.

“Thank you,” Rey says softly. “For not … letting that happen last night.”

“Don’t mention it. I’d never take advantage of you - or anyone else while they were drunk,” Poe says honestly. “I like for the people I kiss to remember it the next morning.” He smiles at her over his cup of caf, and she seems to cringe physically.

“It’s just, even if I weren’t drunk – that can’t ever happen, you know?”

“And why not?” Poe asks, setting his cup down and frowning.

 “You know,” she gestures helplessly. “Jedi, and…all that.”

“And all _what_?” Poe feels petulant and immature, but he wants to know. He isn’t sure how a conversation about their almost kiss turned into him being in a foul mood, especially when he was the one who stopped things from proceeding last night, but here they are.

“Jedi are forbidden from…” Rey’s eyes are wide, and her cheeks are pink. Poe is struck, not for the first time, by the incongruity demanded by her position. Rey does not care about naked bodies or fear death or danger– but speaking of intimacy makes her look like she wants to hide under the table.

“From?” Poe pushes. He’s being an ass. He can’t help it, for whatever reason. It keeps pouring out of him, because he pushes – he pushes _everything_ too far.

“Sex.” Rey blushes full to her hairline, and Poe smirks at her, wondering if he can get her to be as on edge as he feels right now. He places his hands on the counter and leans forward, tilting his head as he says condescendingly:

“Kissing isn’t sex, little Jedi.”

“I know that.” Her mulish, stubborn expression is back, and he likes that expression. He really does. It’s better than when she’s detached, that’s for damn sure.

“And if we kissed, we wouldn’t have to have sex.” Somehow, he’s found it in his legs to walk around the counter, and he prowls towards her, smirking the whole time. Rey’s frozen, staring at him, her eyes almost glassy as she takes a shuddering breath.

“I suppose not,” she whispers.

“And is kissing forbidden by the Jedi?” He doesn’t sound mocking anymore. This game is dangerous, it isn’t klikklak for gods’ sake, it’s not a game he’s sure he can win, not when Rey looks at him like _that._

“I’m not sure.” She doesn’t sound sure, either, her voice wavering.

He’s next to her now, and he’s powerfully aware that for all her strength, and her height, and her normal confidence, he’s much, much larger than she is. Rey’s trembling like a leaf in a rainstorm as he rests an elbow on the counter and smiles at her. “Maybe you need to do some research?” He asks, eyes fixed on her lower lip. _What the hell is he doing?_

“What are you doing?” Rey asks, voice shaky. It’s as though she read his thoughts. Poe doesn’t move, just lifts his eyes up to meet hers, and brighter spots of color have appeared in her cheeks. She’s angry. _Wasn’t that what he wanted_? “This isn’t funny.” Kriff, she looks like she might cry, and this is his fault, because he couldn’t let something go –

“It really isn’t,” Poe agrees because he actually does want to kiss her. Maker help him, he does.

“This isn’t something I’m allowed to do,” Rey says, averting her gaze for now. She looks nervous.

“You’re an adult,” Poe argues. “You can do whatever the hell you want to do.”

“I’m a Jedi,” Rey snaps, and the anger is back full force. She doesn’t look much like a Jedi right now, her pupils blown and cheeks ruddy. “So no, actually, I can’t.” Rey takes a deep, shuddering breath, and her eyes close. When they open again, she looks impossibly calmer. “When are we leaving for the vote, Senator?” She’s clipped, cool, professional, and she takes an almost subconscious step away from him, her robes in place, and detachment reigning supreme on her lovely face.

***

Things remain awkward throughout the day, and Rey doesn’t look up at him when he offers to buy them lunch. She mutters something about not being hungry, and he shrugs, goes back to preparing his notes for the afternoon debate even though yes, he is hungry, and gods, he wishes they could re-do their conversation from this morning.

But the fact that Rey believes nothing could ever happen between them – why does that bother him so much? He hadn’t really planned on making a move on her, gods no, but she’d been so frank about it when it hadn’t even needed to be said. That must be it – he’s irritated because she misconstrued the situation. Yeah. That sounds right.

When Mira takes a seat on his left, he grins at her as flirtatiously as normal. “Senator,” he drawls.

“Senator,” she answers. On his right, the senator from Naboo grumbles something about inappropriate workplace conduct, and Poe entirely ignores them so that he can focus on making suggestive eye contact with the beautiful woman on his left.

Rey’s called out of the meeting to make a scheduled call to the temple, and it’s a team of security that escorts him and Mira back to the penthouse. He feels oddly guilty, almost naughty, like he could be caught doing this. It’s strange, and it churns his gut in a way that he isn’t entirely sure he likes. Mira distracts him quickly enough though, when they’re safely in the apartment, in his room, and the clothes start to be removed.

He presses her into his mattress, enjoying the feeling of another body pressed up against him, and kisses her elegant neck eagerly, thrilling in the uncontrolled sounds she makes. They hadn’t even bothered talking, they’re so used to this pattern. An itch to scratch, and a fun way to scratch it at that. He’s just about to tug his pants off when there’s a knock at his door.

“Are you expecting company?” Mira laughs. It wouldn’t be the first time they shared a bed with someone else, but Poe shakes his head.

“Not without your permission,” he says truthfully. He respects her too much for that. The thought that she’d assume he’d invite a third member to this makes him feel dirty in a way he knows he doesn’t like. So Poe walks to the door and opens it: and his stomach plummets at the curious and then slightly horrified Jedi at the other side.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Rey hisses, staring at the half-dressed woman behind him.

“I was thinking I was going to uh,” Poe laughs nervously, looks over his shoulder, and exchanges a look with Mira. “You know.”

“With all due respect, Senator, it isn’t exactly safe right now for you to be _alone_ with someone who hasn’t been vetted. It’s not responsible.” Rey’s cheeks are pink, and Poe feels a strange flush of shame. It makes him uncomfortable, how on edge he is right now – Poe Dameron has never been ashamed about his sex life, but right now he feels like he’s being scolded. And that, well, that makes him say:

“We’ll be plenty responsible, Jedi,” he leans forward and taps her on the nose, smirking slightly. “Now, if you excuse me, we’re going to fuck. It’s what adults do.”

Her eyes flash with something dangerous, but he’s already hit the button for the door to close.

It only takes those milliseconds for him to fully realize that he hates himself. He hates himself, hehates—

***

It goes disastrously from there on out.

For one, he can’t get it up. Mira tells him it’s alright, and he knows there’s a pill for this, he can go get it from the med-droid in his apartment, but she shrugs and suggests he just relax.

“Let me take care of you,” she purrs, sitting his lap, the silk of her undergarments pleasant on his over-heated skin. She kisses him, and yeah, that feels nice, and she kisses his neck, and he likes that too, but he feels like crying, which is beyond weird. “Just close your eyes.” Her hands skate over him soothingly, and Poe obliges, and his brow smooths out while she continues to administer gentle attention to him.

“That’s nice,” he says with a sigh, and Mira laughs, and he tries not to think of another laugh, of another set of lips on his skin, but— “Oh, there you are!” She giggles, and Poe feels a little sick to his stomach because that sound isn’t right.

He lets his mind slip for a second, just gives himself a kriffing second where he can imagine that someone else is holding him – and it’s awful, he shouldn’t be using Mira like this, but he knows for a fact he’s only here with her because she’s furious with her on-again, off-again paramour – and he shudders when her tongue laves over his collarbone.

“Does that feel nice?” She asks directly into his ear, right before she bites the lobe and whispers, “Senator?”

“Rey,” Poe whispers, and then he freezes as though he’d dumped a bucket of ice water over his body.

“Oh.” Mira leans back, and he opens his eyes, and his mouth, to apologize, but she doesn’t look mad. “Oh, you poor thing.”

“I’m sorry,” Poe says weakly. “I’m so fucking sorry—”

“Don’t be.” Mira waves a hand airily. “I’m guessing that girl who knocked on the door is Rey?” He nods, too mortified to lie. “And does she know?”

“Does she know what?”

Mira slides off his lap entirely, and they sit looking at each other for a long moment before Mira shakes her head.  “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

She doesn’t explain herself, but she lets him walk her to the door after she dresses, walking past a figure sitting on the couch (and his shoulders tense for the confrontation that’s sure to follow as soon as Mira leaves).

He kisses her softly, and she lets him, but then she kisses him on the cheek, and it feels entirely like the dismissal that it is. It’s only as she’s walking down the corridor, and he’s closed the door, that he realizes the sentinel sitting on the couch isn’t Rey at all, but a man from the security team.

“Where’s the Jedi?” He asks, frowning at him. What was his name? Kero.

Kero looks up from his chrono. “She went out, about half an hour ago.”

“She went _out_?” Poe repeats, eyebrows raised higher than he thinks they’ve ever been. “Is – is she allowed to do that?” His voice is doing whatever the kriff it wants right now, its pitch all over the place, almost cracking.

The man snorts and goes back to his holopad. “I’m not entirely sure I would have been able to stop her either way.” Poe shakes his head and walks to his door, fuming. She probably just went out for a walk, to clear her head. Probably still in the building, knowing Rey. “She looked really pretty though.”

Poe spins on his heel and stares at Kero. “What?”

“The Jedi.” Kero looks up, smiling, but it falls when he sees Poe’s face. “Rey- she uh – she looked really pretty. Different. Said she was going dancing?”

 _I’ll take you dancing sometime._ The memory of yesterday rams into him, and Poe sees red. He storms into his room and wishes it were a real door like the ones on his dad’s compound, just so he could kriffing slam it, for the kriffing satisfaction of it.

He paces in his room for an hour before pulling his robe off and hanging it up. Then, he stalks out to the living room, and nods at Kero. “You can go,” he says.

Kero frowns. “I’m really not supposed to—”

“I want to talk to the Jedi when she gets back. Alone.” It’s petulant, it sounds petulant, but Kero raises his hands and his eyebrows.

“You got it, boss. If it’s all the same to you, though, I’ll wait in the hallway.” Poe nods, and when the door hisses shut behind the man, Poe grips his hair and collapses in a chair, breathing heavily.

Someone tried to blow him off the map literally fucking weeks ago – she was _with_ him, drew a lot more kriffing attention than he did. And she was just – out on the town? With a target on her back?

It passes midnight, and then it’s two a.m., and Poe does exercises in the sitting room, like he’s back in the Academy and trying to stay awake for his night watch. His shirt is tossed to the floor around the hundredth sit-up, and when he checks his chronometer at 0400, his anxiety hasn’t gone anywhere.

When the light of dawn creeps over Chandrila’s horizon, visible from his windows, the door clicks open. Poe leaps to his feet from where he’d been kneeling, trying to meditate the way a certain someone taught him, and Rey walks in.

Fuck. Kero hadn’t been kidding.

She’s wearing some slinky green tank top – silk, because of course – that exposes her freckled shoulders, and tight black pants that are essentially leggings. Her braid is messy, and her cheeks are flushed, and Maker, help him-

“Where were you?” He snaps. Rey spares him a glance as she walks into the apartment, locking the door behind her. “Where-were-you?” Poe repeats, exhausted, on edge. She’s been gone for almost eight _fucking_ hours.

“Out.” Rey flips the tail of her braid over her shoulder and stalks towards the guest room she’s been occupying.

“Out?” Poe demands, following her to the door. “You went _out_?”

“It’s what adults do.” The look she gives him before the door hisses shut isn’t angry. He could have handled angry.

She was hurt.

But fuck, he’d been so worried, and she was just – gallivanting? Probably at a club, probably dancing, if the sheen of sweat on her soft, freckled skin is any indication – probably dancing with some meathead, good-looking, karking –

Poe’s fist is banging on the door before he can think twice. “Rey!” He snaps, banging the door again. “Rey, come out here and talk to me.”

“I don’t take orders from you.” Her voice is level, calm as it drifts through the door. That only makes him angrier. He’d been – he was –

“You were out _all night,_ ” he snaps. “And in case you haven’t noticed, someone’s trying to kill me. And you just – you walked out, and—”

The doors hiss open and he has to startle back to avoid falling into her room because he’d been leaning on the door. “Security was still here.” Rey brushes past, her hair out of her customary braid, loose and wavy around her shoulders. She’s still wearing that damn shirt, and it’s painfully obvious that she _isn’t_ wearing a – _eyes up, Dameron,_ “I didn’t leave you defenseless, _Senator,_ and besides, you were well occupied.”

“Look, I’m sorry that I – I offended your precious _Jedi sensibilities,_ or whatever, but I’m sorry that the rest of the galaxy isn’t caught up in prudish nonsense about not fucking when they feel like it.”

“What do you mean?” Rey draws herself up to her full height and glowers at him. It feels as though it’s almost physical contact, it’s so intense. Poe can’t think straight, and _fuck,_ she’s just standing there, torturing him, she has no idea, and it’s not her fault, nothing ever could possibly be her fault, not when she’s sweet and young and innocent in a way he’s forgotten how to be –

“I mean,” Poe’s never backed down from a fight in his life. He’s about to pay for it, he knows. “I _mean,_ what the hell are we doing, Rey?”

The truth is about to come bubbling out, and it’s going to be disastrous. Something in his gut is telling him to calm down, to think this through, not just let it out into the open where it can hurt both of them. But he can’t take back her name in his mouth when it should have been someone else’s, he can’t take back the fact that not even two months ago, the thought of Anton marrying someone else would have driven him to the bottle, and yet earlier this week, he’d kriffing _meant it_ when he said he was happy for him –

“We’re arguing,” Rey says simply, and something in her shoulders deflates. “Over something silly. Like you said. You can _fuck_ whoever you want.”

Dangerous territory. He needs to get out. “This isn’t really about me. You don’t get to stand there and judge me—”

“Judge you?”

“Yes, _judge me,_ for pursuing adult, sexual relationships!”

“There’s that word again,” Rey looks livid, and somehow they’ve spiraled back into anger, the ebb and flow of this argument exhausting him when all he wants to do is pull her into his arms and confess the truth he’s only just learned for himself. “Adult. It does not make you more of an adult to have sex, Senator.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Poe agrees. Something dark and awful, twisted and horrible, rises up inside him, and the words that follow don’t even sound like they come from himself. “But you can stand there and lie until you’re blue in the face that you’re not having sex because ‘you’re a Jedi.’” The air quotes might have been a little much. “No – you’re not having sex because you’re terrified of intimacy.” Rey makes an angry, scoffing noise, and his voice gentles, whether into condescension or thoughtfulness is anyone’s guess. “You are. It’s obvious. And I get it, I really get it, after what you went through as a child. But you can’t hide behind it your whole life, Jedi or not. The more you fear it, the more it can hurt you. So go on, and tell me I’m wrong.” He adds the last part when he runs out of steam, the cruelty of using her past against her in this fight catching up with him, causing him to entirely lose his train of thought.

Rey looks like he’d slapped her – fuck, fuckfuckfuck, how had he messed this up so badly – and then she looks like there’s nothing at all going on in her head. Her face wipes clean, and she releases a short breath before walking past him, her steps soundless on the floor of his apartment.

“Rey,” Poe says softly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—” She ignores him and keeps walking. Poe follows her, his voice rising in its earnestness. “Rey, please, I was just feeling frustrated, and I’m tired, and I didn’t mean it—”

She pauses in her doorway, the hand gripping the frame for a moment. She turns her head, not fully looking over her shoulder, but he can see the cool, disinterested expression. “Yes, you did. Let’s not add lying to the list, Senator.” And then the door hisses shut, leaving him out in the hallway to yank at his hair and curse himself silently.

He waits a minute before he hears broken, horrible sobbing on the other side of the door. “Rey,” Poe clears his throat and knocks on the door. “Rey, open up, please, I shouldn’t have said that, it was awful—” The crying continues, but it sounds muffled now, and he can see it, he can imagine it, Rey lying face down on her small bed in her pretty shirt, her face twisted in agony as she tries to choke back the grief that he’d dredged up with his stupid, stupid mouth. “Sweetheart, please open the door—”

“Go away.” It’s not loud, it’s not shouted, and he’s not entirely sure how he heard it. But he swallows and nods, leaving his hand pressed against the door a second longer before he turns and walks into his dark and empty room.

***

The next morning, Poe goes all out. It’s with more than a hint of desperation that he prepares his apology, getting up an hour earlier than normal (not that he’d slept a wink), spinning around the kitchen like a cyclone. He has a speech, written down on notecards and everything, and he’s going to get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness if he has to because he’s had long, painful hours to realize just how badly he karked everything up.

He hears her door hiss open right on schedule, and Poe stands nervously in the kitchen while she walks in, the counter between them laden down with her absolute favorite kind of pancakes (chocolate), and hot cocoa, and whipped cream by the literal tureen.

Rey looks exhausted and pale, her robes loose and ill-fitting, her hair back up in three messy buns. She studies the food in front of her, and then looks at him, not even a spark of light or recognition in her eyes. Poe opens his mouth to begin his apology, but she beats him to the punch.

“All that food for one person? Be careful, Senator Dameron, you don’t want to get ill.” She pulls a protein pack out of her pocket and unwraps it slowly, walking past him towards her spot in the living room where she normally mediates.

“Rey,” Poe calls after her weakly.

She folds her legs underneath herself and looks out the window, and she doesn’t turn around to see him staring at her. “Let me know when you plan to depart, Senator Dameron.”

And that’s the only thing she says all morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hides)


	6. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a disastrous conversation, Poe tries to make amends with his Jedi bodyguard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ............an........update?!?

_Poe opens his eyes to find himself in a familiar field, orchids glowing in the light of dusk, the scent of koyo heavy in the humid air._

_He lets his hands trail along the tops of the beautiful flowers as he walks along the well-trodden dirt path that winds through his family’s crops, the hooting of woolamanders echoing throughout the clearing. His destination isn’t a fixed point, but rather a person, who sways and sings to herself under the shining stars, her back to him as the night sky reverberates with the simple joy of her existence._

_“I’m sorry,” Poe whispers because it’s his fault. “I never meant to-”_

_“That’s not why we’re here.” There’s a crown of flowers on her head, her hair unbound and tumbling down her back. “You know that’s not why we’re here.”_

_“Then why?” Poe’s eyes dart around the field, and he frowns - instead of the trees of Yavin IV, the boundaries to the field are skyscrapers, structures that are recognizable as the ones that line his commute to the government building on Chandrila. “...Why are we here?”_

_“I’m not sure.” She turns around at last, and her eyes are no longer hazel; instead, they blaze with the clear, silver light of every star that shines above them. “With you a senator, and me a Jedi - do either of us really belong here?” Poe’s eyes drop to where her hands are, and he freezes. He barely hears her next words._

_“This is not the life we were meant to live.” Her hands frame her belly, swollen with what he knows to be his child. He knows it as much as he knows his own name, his mother’s name, his father’s. He knows that this woman - the last of the Jedi, some distant echo calls her, and kriff if that doesn’t make any sense - has claimed him, and he has claimed her, and here she stands in this urban pasture with the evidence of that all-consuming love -_

_Rey walks towards him, her footsteps not even making a whisper as she winds through the overgrown grass; she walks towards him until one hand cups his cheek as the other stays in place, cradling their unborn child. “There is a war coming, Commander. And you have to wake up.”_

Poe stares into his cup of caf, still unable to shake his latest dream. He can rationalize it as much as he wants, but he knows now why these vivid dreams he’s had since he was assigned his bodyguard feel so terribly familiar; they echo with the ephemeral truth of the visions the Force Tree had bestowed upon him as a child. Sleeping in the tangled roots of the Force Tree for almost a year had its consequences, and Poe remembers now the silver-sheened undeniability of what It had shown him then, the warnings of his mother’s impending illness, her death, and the years that would stretch on after Shara had gone, caverns of grief inside himself and his father that would never quite heal.

And now:

Rey, pregnant. Rey, his wife. Rey, the last of the Jedi. And Poe, a _\- a Commander_?

He shivers at the lingering tackiness that came from drowning in the dream, drowning in the sensation of rightness, of inevitability. His caf is almost gone, and he can see the dregs floating at the bottom of the cup; usually much better at filtering his caf, Poe had given up this morning and just gone for any kind of caf, as hot and as fast as possible.

It’s nearing sunrise; the door to the guest room hisses open, and Rey emerges, in the formless grey robe she’s worn every day since he ruined everything. Their fight - did it count as a fight, if Poe was the one yelling, the one hurting the person he never wanted to hurt, the person he -- was ten days ago, and she hasn’t spoken to him outside of curt responses and reminders. Poe stares at her, agonized, as she crosses through the kitchen to her normal spot for meditation.

“Good morning,” he says hoarsely. “Did you sleep alright?”

“I slept.” Rey gives him a cool glance before taking a container of water from her belt and sipping briefly. “I hope you slept well.”

“I --” Poe hangs his head, the trembling in his shoulders still very much pleasant. He shakes his head weakly. “No, I didn’t.”

Rey pauses; at least, he doesn’t hear her continue to walk away from him. “Preparing for a vote?”

Poe snorts and looks up, wondering if the bags under his eyes are as visible as they feel. “No.” He shakes his head again. “No, that wasn’t the problem.”

“What was?” This is the closest thing they’ve had to a conversation in ten days, and despite himself, despite the strange prickling in his spine telling him to disengage from this before he ruins things even more, Poe tells her.

“I’ve been having...weird dreams.” He winces, knowing what that must sound like, and knowing that he can’t actually tell her what they’re about. “Not...bad, really. Just vivid. Reminds me of when I was a kid on Yavin.” Rey quirks an eyebrow at him, and Poe clears his throat, trying to get the hoarseness out of his voice. “My mom planted a Force tree on Yavin, I grew up under it. I had a lot of visions from it. Some good.” He stares at the counter. “Some bad.”

“You’re Force Sensitive.” Rey doesn’t say it like a question. “Of course. Why didn’t I see it before?” He looks up again, and sees that Rey’s head is cocked to the side. Her eyes aren’t on him anymore and instead, she’s staring off into space, towards the windows behind him. “I get them too. The dreams.”

“Yeah?” Poe half-smiles, not that she sees it. He’s just so kriffing glad she’s opening up to him again. “Good dreams?”

Rey shudders and shakes her head. “No.” His heart throbs at the lost expression she wears.

She doesn’t say anything more - seemingly, she remembers that she hates him now, or at the very least, no longer trusts him, because the mask she’s worn for ten days slips back into place. Rey nods at him. “I’m sorry for taking up your time, Senator Dameron. I know you actually do have a vote to get ready for.”

Rey walks away, and Poe aches to run after her, crawl after her on his knees until she smiles at him again, bury his face in her robes and beg her to forgive him, but - she’s right. He does have a vote to prepare for.

***

The vote to end the slave trade in the Rim isn’t successful, but it doesn’t fail either.

Poe goes toe-to-toe once again with Core World representatives, fighting the urge to scream at Re’tha, the Senator Select of Coruscant, who dismisses the slave trade in the Outer Rim as “nothing more than the unfortunate after effects of a terrible war.”

“Unfortunate?” Poe snarls, his hands tightening into fists. “Hundreds of thousands of children forced into slavery - that’s _unfortunate_?”

“It’s a vital part of many of the desert planets’ economies,” Re’tha declares primly. “The Core Worlds managed to abolish it in time, and--”

“Banthashit.” The crowd titters, and Poe realizes he’s stood from his seat. He’s practically vibrating with rage, and he can see a slender figure standing in the window, the only other person in this room who’s standing, the only person in this room (barring Leia) whose opinion he actually truly, deeply values. Whose life had been _ruined_ by this. The only real authority in the room on this subject. Poe takes a deep, calming breath and forces himself to look away from her. “That’s a pretty lie, Re’tha, but it’s a lie. Slavery has not been abolished in the Core Worlds.”

“If the Senator from Yavin is going to make up fallacious--”

“Jakku has a thriving slave trade.” Poe slams his hand on the table and glowers at Re’tha, at the other senators from Chandrila, Corellia, Coruscant - all the senators whose smirks have faded in the last thirty seconds. “And I’m sure if we tugged hard enough on the right strings, we’d find it thriving here, beneath our very noses. Just because something isn’t _visible,_ isn’t _legal,_ doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

Poe clears his throat, takes another breath, and suddenly a wave of calm washes over him. His eyes flicker to where Rey stands in the window, and her hazel eyes are locked onto him. She’s the one giving him this strength, he realizes.

“I demand that we open an investigation.” Poe looks around the room, his eyes settling on Leia, who, even in her dignified First Senator role, cannot hide the pride burning in her face. “Into slavery in every one of the recognized members of the Republic. And, I ask that we start a special committee for the pursuit of justice for every enslaved being in the Republic.”

“Seconded.” The senator for Tatooine speaks up first, standing to nod at Poe. One by one, upwards of two dozen senators stand and voice support for the measure. Not a single one of Re’tha’s pack offers their support.

Poe smiles to himself when Leia bangs her gavel and calls them back to order. “Motion granted. We’ll reconvene after lunch.” She winks at Poe across the room, and he walks to where Rey is waiting for him. Even if she’s furious with him, he can count on her to continue to watch his back. He trusts her, more than anything.

Rey’s face isn’t impassive today. Instead, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, a nervous habit, and he watches as something fights for control in her expression.

“Are you hungry today?” He asks as they walk into the front hall. She’s refused to eat with him the last ten days, instead opting for a protein pack. It doesn’t stop him from asking every day.

Today though, she surprises him. “A little.” Her arms are wrapped around her middle when he peeks over at her.

“Yeah?” He grins when she nods, just a little bit, her chin rising and lifting almost infinitesimally. “...Can I get you something to eat?”

Rey shrugs, and he’s definitely not imagining the ghost of a smile on her lips. They head out the doors towards her favorite Aqualish vendor, and Rey perks up when the man asks her a question. Poe can’t follow along, but he does openly study her face, animated and excited - he secrets the memory of this away, the weak, mid-day sun shining down on her, her eyes sparkling as she playfully barters for the chunks of aromatic meat being scraped into a to-go container - and he smiles sheepishly when she catches him staring.

The vendor says something, and Rey doesn’t look away from Poe to answer, her voice slow and thoughtful. She looks back up at him and beams while she accepts the steaming pile of food, and then Poe reaches into his pocket for the credits to pay the man. The vendor gives him what feels like a stern glare as the money exchanges hands, and next to Poe, Rey bounces in excitement on the pavement, bearing her weight on her toes as she inhales the steam coming off of the food.

Poe trips over the word for _thank you_ in Aqualish, and they move out of the way. “Are we going to split that?” Poe asks, grinning at Rey’s clear hesitation.

“I guess you can have some.” It’s an attempt at playfulness, and honestly, Poe would skip lunch, or buy her the entirety of the vendor’s cart, if it meant he could hear her tease him again.

They settle into a spot in the sunshine, and Rey begins to eat with her hands, her eyes still coming up to monitor the area around them. Poe doesn’t push for conversation, too happy for them not to be five feet away from each other and glowering in opposite directions. Instead, he basks in the warm light and Rey’s presence, and eventually he realizes he can’t differentiate between the two at all.

***

They’ve been stuck inside for most of the week, as it’s been raining. Three weeks after The Disaster, as Poe’s been calling it in his head, and Rey’s starting to smile a little more; but, she still looks uncomfortable around him, her eyes distant and sad where they used to be curious and bright, and he knows he has parsecs to go.

After a week of rain, on Benduday, the sun comes back out, and Poe has a sudden idea.

“What are you doing today?” He asks Rey when she’s rolling up her meditation mat. She gives him a strange look, and it seems like she’s trying to stop herself from smiling.

“Whatever you’re doing.” _Idiot_ goes unsaid, but very much heard. “Why?”

“I was thinking we could go somewhere.” Poe rubs the back of his neck, and while he’s desperate to repair the damage he’s caused, he understands Rey might really be against the idea of spending one-on-one time with him outside of her duties. “Somewhere....nice?” Rey doesn’t look irritated, so he keeps going. “Like, on a picnic?”

“A pic-nic?” Rey cocks her head at that, kneeling on the floor as she considers his suggestion. “I...I don’t know what that word means.”

Poe grins, excited despite himself, because _she doesn’t know what a picnic is,_ and _they’re going to have the best day ever._ “Humor me?” He asks nervously, well aware that she could throw him out the window with a small toss of her head. “I’ll let you drive.”

“As if there was any other option.” Rey gathers her mat up and stands from the floor. “Do I need to do anything? For a … pic-nic?”

“Nope.” Poe smiles at her, a tentative easiness spreading through him. “Just yourself. We’ll be outside for most of it.”

“Oh, thank the Maker.” Rey shakes her head while walking away. “I was worried it was one of those stupid operas you like so much.”

“Hey! _The Tragedy of the Two Lovers_ is a fantastic piece of art, and you know it!” Poe calls at her retreating figure; her derisive snort is not lost on him.

In less than an hour, they find themselves on Poe’s favorite speeder, Rey in the front to drive, and Poe feeling younger than he has in years while they zip eastward, towards the vast expanse of forest at the city’s edge. He doesn’t speak other than to offer Rey directions, and he spends most of the ride studying her face, half-obscured by goggles, but her grin uncontrollable and effervescent.

They park in a clearing that Poe found a few years ago, and Rey hops down from the speeder, spinning around in a circle, her arms outstretched; her goggles are pushed up on her head, and her fingers twist and weave around in a completely unstudied form of dancing, and her face is tilted back to receive the rays of light shining down through the treetops.

“Oh.” Her eyes are shut, and her lips turned upwards in a blissful smile - Poe tries very hard not to stare at her lips. “This is _lovely._ ”

“I’m glad you like it.” Poe unloads the basket from the back of the speeder and grabs the blanket from the top. He spreads it out across the grass and clears his throat. Hazel eyes open and see him standing there, gesturing down at the open basket and blanket. “Picnic?”

“A picnic has _food_?” Rey squeals and dives for the basket, picking through eagerly. He’d packed her favorite snacks, and made more than a few sandwiches. Rey digs around until she pulls out a koyo melon. Sitting back on her heels, she sighs dreamily, cradling the round fruit in front of her body. With the swollen fruit there, Poe’s forcibly reminded of the vision he had of Rey, heavy with child, and he shakes himself to get rid of the memory.

“I like this,” Rey says. Poe settles down across from her on the blanket and holds his hand out silently for the melon. Rey hands it over, and he flips open a small pocket-vibroblade to carve the melon into chunks. He ends up plunking them one by one into Rey’s cupped hands, and he tries very hard not to notice how endearingly she tips her head back to eat each piece, the juice running down her wrists towards the sleeves of her tunic, the juice shining around her red-stained mouth.

Birds fly overhead in squawking, vibrant patterns, and Rey spends a good amount of time watching them; she doesn’t bother to wipe her hands or mouth clean after the melon is gone - Poe allowed himself one piece, not wanting to deny Rey any part of her favorite fruit - and Poe realizes that he’s never seen anyone as beautiful as her. Rey doesn’t seem to be aware of his gaze on her at all, and instead she sits perfectly naturally, her long limbs spread out around her, her lips and chin stained with melon, her hands sticky; her tunic doesn’t fit well, and her goggles have made her already-messy braid even messier, and Rey is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.

It hits him, painfully, why he’s been so upset by their recent rift. He’s been in fights with almost everyone in his life, people he cares about - hells, Leia’s _slapped_ him a few times - but Poe realizes then that the last few weeks, he’s been almost….grieving. Grieving because of what he had done, and what he had lost.

 _He loves her._ He hurt the person he loves because he couldn’t bear the conclusion they’d both come to - that they could never be together. On some level, he knew that this could never work, even if she wanted him back, so he resisted acknowledging even to himself that he loves this woman. And when Rey confronted him with it, the simple fact that as a Jedi, love between them was forbidden, and that she had no choice in the matter, he’d lashed out at her cruelly.

He’d punished her because _he’d_ been stupid in enough to fall in love with someone who could never feel the same way, who had a life and a future outside of a scruffy ex-pilot who was a half-decent senator at best.

Poe flinches as it crashes into him, and he swears a cloud passes over Chandrila’s sun in that exact moment. Rey lowers her face from its study of the sky to look at him instead, and Poe wishes she hadn’t. He could never compare to the balance and beauty of nature; when she looks at him, she must see all the things he’s lacking.

But Rey’s voice is thoughtful when she speaks. “You were right.”

“About picnics?” Poe’s smile is unforced, even as a piece of his heart breaks off and flutters to the floor of his abdomen, because it’s so kriffing easy to smile at Rey. “Yeah, they’re great.”

“No.” Rey shakes her head and runs her hand along the blanket, stirring imaginary patterns into the fabric. “About...about why I hide behind being a Jedi. Instead of...you know”

 _You’re not having sex because you’re terrified of intimacy._ The memory of his cruelty taunts him, and Poe startles forward, his hand outstretched beseechingly.  “Don’t say that,” he begs her. “Please. I was - I can’t tell you why I said that, but I was wrong. I was so wrong.”

Rey shakes her head and sighs sadly. “Other Padawans had sex.” She doesn’t pull away when Poe’s hand settles on her own, and he squeezes tightly. “Master Ben told me it isn’t the worst thing to stray in that way, that Jedi are still people with normal desires, and as long as it was a celebration of both people, and everyone was safe and happy, it...it wasn’t unforgivable.” She smiles at Poe, but she looks desperately sad. “I think I was the only padawan in my age group at the temple who didn’t...who never…”

“That’s fine.” Poe covers her hand with both of his now, and he kneels in front of her, imploring her with every cell of his body to believe him. “There is _nothing_ wrong with that, I was a petty, selfish coward for saying that to you, and I”m sorry I tried to belittle you because _I_ couldn’t handle the reality of your vows, and I’ve regretted it every second since--”

“I never wanted to.” Rey’s other hand comes up to cover the back of his, and she squeezes it tentatively. “I never saw the point in it. I never struggled with it.” There’s an eternity of space between that and her next statement, an infinite distance that Poe can’t believe she has the bravery to bridge; but, she does, her head coming up so she can look him in the eye, half-vulnerable, but almost defiant. “I’m struggling with it now.”

Poe sits back on his heels heavily, and neither one moves to pull away from the other. The birds continue to fly overhead, and Poe licks his bottom lip nervously. Rey’s eyes track the movement, and he wonders - he _burns_ with wondering - what koyo melon tastes like on her lips.

“Rey, I--”

“Don’t.” Rey’s cheeks are flushed, but her eyes are shining again. “Don’t apologize.”

“But-” They’re leaning in, and the wind rustles through the trees, and Poe honestly can’t tell if bringing her out here was the worst thing he could have done, or the best.

“And please, _please_ , don’t...don’t hate me if I can’t…” Rey’s trembling, her eyes flickering between his mouth and his eyes, and Poe understands. He makes the decision for them. He leans in and brushes his lips over her forehead before he tucks her head under his chin, and Rey’s arms wrap around him. They stay like that, Rey’s face pressed to his sternum, his hands combing through her tangled hair, his knees aching from kneeling for so long (but he’d kriffing die before he let her go again).

“I could never hate you,” Poe whispers, closing his eyes and listening to the wind move through the trees. Between the lingering scent of koyo, the warm air, and the sense of _home_ that he knows comes from being near Rey, he can almost pretend that he’s back on Yavin. “Never, sweetheart.”

She might have forgiven him, but he still has so much more to do, to ensure that Rey doesn’t spend one more second of her life thinking that he could ever hate her. Even if he never gets to hold her like this again, even if he never discovers what she tastes like, or what it feels like to fully love her, even if the visions the Force sent him never come true -

Poe will make sure Rey knows how much he respects her.

And if he does this right, she’ll come to understand that he loves her.

Even if he's never allowed to actually say it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 84 years.....
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway I hope it wasn't terrible and that people are still interested in this story??!?!


	7. Naboo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an upsetting dream, Poe travels to Naboo for the annual Peace Ceremony. He attends a ball with his Jedi bodyguard, and they encounter a different kind of evening than they'd originally anticipated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes notes notes:
> 
> There's a touch of the smutty smut smut in one of Poe's dreams, the first one he has on Naboo (not the first of the chapter) 
> 
> Warning: Poe's second 'dream' is violent/has mentions of blood.

_He’s on Yavin again, the Force tree some two hundred feet in front of him, and Poe walks quicker than he has before; he cannot hold Rey when he wakes, but here, at least here, he can -_

_Rey is not there, not in the shade of the tree._

_Instead, a boy of maybe two years trips along the roots, humming to himself as he skims a toy X-Wing along the tops of the grass.  Poe knows the song; he heard Rey sing it the last time the Force brought him here. He cranes his neck left and right, even turns around, but: there is no one here with the boy._

_“Are you lost, kid?” He shouts, the noise oddly muffled. The boy doesn’t answer, but his odd little hop-skip-dance turns him around, and Poe’s breath stops (if he can even describe what he does here as breathing)._

_The boy has a shock of dark curls that frame a serious face; his jaw is strong even for someone so young, and his nose is pert, his eyes a beautiful hazel. His shoulders promise a stockiness that his legs fulfill, strong in the way that pudgy toddlers often are._

_The child is beautiful._

_And Poe knows._

_The child is his son._

_Before he can call to him, Rey comes around the tree and laughs brightly. The toddler coos with delight and grabs at her; she catches his hand and they walk towards the trunk together, her stride - usually long and graceful - shortened exaggeratedly to match his wobbling steps. They sing together, the same tune the boy had been humming, and Poe’s heart surges at the same time the light around the tree flares. Rey guides their son to the tree, and they kneel there together, playing some game that Poe doesn’t know the rules to, but they both laugh frequently and delightedly, and his heart has never been this full._

_He takes a step to join them._

_He doesn’t move. He frowns, lifts his foot again, but the same - he cannot move. He’s a visitor here, he realizes, not a participant like he was the last few times the Force gave him visions, and he hears someone calling in the distance. “Han!”_

_Not someone - it’s his voice that echoes through the clearing._

_The little boy - Han? - and Rey look up at the same time, and he watches Rey poke the toddler in the round tummy. Both of them giggle._

_There’s the sound of rustling grass, and Poe sees himself sprinting through the grass. “Han? Oh, gods, Han - where’ve you been, huh?”_

_He’s older - maybe five years older, maybe more. His hair is more silver than black now, and there are lines in his face that he’s sure he wouldn’t currently see in a mirror. “C’mere.”_

_This Other Poe catches his son around the middle and hefts him into his arms, running nervous hands through his curls. “You scared me, buddy. How did you even get out here?”_

_Poe opens his mouth to point out that Han’s mother has been here this whole time, that Rey’s been watching him, but his words die in his throat at Rey’s expression._

_She looks impossibly sad, her back still braced by the bark of the Force tree. She’s impossibly sad, but still she smiles._

_The baby, Han, points at the tree, where his mother still sits. “Mama!”_

_Rey is here, yes. But she is part of the tree, now._

_“No.”_

_It’s a whisper of noise, and he’s sure Han and Other Poe can’t hear him - but Rey looks over from where she’s staring hungrily at father and son, and she gasps, her hand flying to her mouth._

_She staggers to her feet, a hand still pressed to the trunk, and to his intense relief and terror, Poe finds that he can move again. “Rey?” The word extends between them, stretches, splinters._

_“Can you see me?” She looks older as well - but not a full five years, not like him._

_“How?” They can’t touch, which Poe discovers when he reaches out to cradle her face in his palm. Rey smiles sadly at his attempt. “How did you--”_

_“How did I die?” Her smile is pert, and her mannerisms far more open than the Rey he knows. “Rude question. And the wrong one, Commander.”_

_“I’m not a commander. I’m a Senator.”_

_“Oh?” Rey frowns at that. They both turn at the sound of Han and Other Poe laughing in the grass, the father blowing loud, bantha-fart noises against the son’s stomach._

_“So, we...got married?” Poe asks._

_Rey laughs once more. “Still the wrong question, flyboy.” Her smile is infinitely kind._

_Poe finds that he doesn’t have any more questions right now. So, he settles for a truth that he can share. “I love you.”_

_“I know.” Rey takes his hand, and it feels like the soft silver of a moonbeam against his skin. “We both do.”_

_“Both?” Poe looks up, where the Force shines brightest from the tree, and he sees her._

_Shara Bey sits on the lowest branch of the Force Tree, smiling down at her son and his child._

Right around the moment his heart breaks, Poe wakes up.

Within seconds, he’s on his feet, stumbling for the door, and while he’s still coming into awareness, his legs know exactly where to take him. He hesitates for a second before knocking, but then he is, louder and louder, the hand not slamming against durasteel dragging through his hair, and he’s mid-fifteenth knock when the door hisses open.

“Poe?” Rey rubs her eyes, half-shut still, her pink lips parted slightly, cheeks flushed from sleep. “Is something wrong?” Her voice is drowsy, and maybe in an hour Poe will feel bad about waking her up so rudely, but for right now all he can focus on is that she’s here, she’s here and she’s...she’s….

“Rey.” He exhales her name, and it comes out cracked and broken. “I’m sorry, I just - I …”

“Bad dream?” Rey tilts her head at him, seeing through him with those large hazel eyes. “Can I help you with anything?” She already looks more awake, but Poe clears his throat.

“No, no. I just need to see…” He trails off because how is he going to explain that his dream was about _her,_ that all his dreams are about her these days, and he’s seen her naked, felt her underneath him, has felt what it is to love her - “I’m...it’s okay now.”

It’s the farther thing from okay, and Rey seems to sense this. She grabs his hand and tugs him into her spartan quarters. “C’mon, flyboy.”

Poe freezes. “Wh-what?” Rey’s never called him that before, not _here_ at least. (Not _now_ if these visions the Force has sent him are visions of the future, but he refuses to accept that because if that’s his future, Rey would be--)

“Flyboy?” Rey cocks her head at him and puts her hand on her hip. “Isn’t that what they called you during your first election campaign? The Flyboy from Yavin?”

It’s true - after Poe had won the Intergalactic Triple Parsec as a teenager, he’d gotten universal fame; and when he’d run for Senate, some of his opponents had dismissed him as an “overeager, trigger-happy flyboy.”

“Of course.” Poe flashes her a smile, but it probably comes out as a grimace. Rey doesn’t comment on it, merely continue to pull him inward, until they’re balancing at the foot of her bed. “Look, I really am okay now, I just needed to see … you.” He finishes lamely, wincing.

“Well, here I am.” Rey’s smile is timid, and it’s now that Poe notices that she’s wearing a very impossibly short pair of sleep pants, and a sleeveless shirt. His mouth goes dry with the effort of not noticing anything else.

He stares at the floor, ears burning, so he doesn’t see it coming. Thin arms wrap around his neck, and suddenly he has to contend with Rey pressed against him, her chin on his shoulder. Remarkably, he’s able to remember how human beings are supposed to act when hugged, and he wraps his arms around her slender waist, holding her close.

At the last second, he angles his hips slightly, praying that her naivete won’t allow her to recognize the (admittedly slight, for the moment, due to his lingering grief from the vision) reaction to her being so close to him. They sway in their embrace, and Poe breathes shallowly; it doesn’t save him from being able to smell the sleep-warm sweetness of Rey’s skin, the pulse of her throat so unbearably close to his mouth.

He pulls away first, clearing his throat, and Rey’s arms drop from where they were wound around his neck. “I’ll let you get back to sleep.” Poe smiles at her, and Rey smiles back, and he hopes this hasn’t just ruined everything.

“You can stay.” There’s no hint of innuendo in her voice, but Poe feels his body waking up more, becoming more aware of the tangled sheets of the bed behind him, the sliver of skin between the hem of her shirt and the top of her shorts, skin that he just knows would be smooth, like silk, if he were able to trace it with his fingers. Or tongue.

“No.” His voice cracks from how quickly he says it. “No, no, I’ve bothered you enough.” Her smile falters, and her eyes are confused, but Rey just nods and doesn’t push to find out why he’s acting like such a nerfherder.

“Well, then, goodnight, Senator.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” It’s out before he can stop it, and he can’t ignore the way her cheeks redden, so he stumbles for the door, collapsing against the wall the second the doors hiss shut, and he’s out of sight.

[Master-Poe?] BB-8 whirls towards him. [What is the problem? Your readings are unfavorable.]

“I’m the problem, buddy.” Poe wipes his mouth and pushes away from the wall, walking towards his room. Beebee’s hot on his heels, angrily insisting that he could never be a problem, and Poe’s smiling slightly at the droid’s adamance; he’s so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice the door to the guest room opening once more, and he doesn’t notice the Jedi inside peeking out to watch him retreat.

***

“The Peace Ceremony is in three days.” Leia looks up from her holo-report to glance at Poe. “You’re going.”

“It’s on Naboo, Senator.” Poe earns an unimpressed look.

“Never heard of it.” Her lips twitch briefly before going back to her report. “So, pack your bags.”

“If my life’s in danger, should I really be going to a Peace Ceremony on a different plant?” Poe has to ask, so he does, and Leia finally puts her report aside, sighing slightly.

“Rey will go with you, of course. She’ll even attend the Peace Ceremony at your side. You won’t be in any more danger there than you are here, and with security being as tight as it’s planned at the actual ceremony, I don’t think an assassin could get within ten klicks of the palace before being discovered.”

“Alright,” Poe sighs. He knows it’s time to quit arguing, sometimes. “So, I’ll go pack?”

“Mhm.” Leia returns to her holo-pad, and Poe stands to leave. Before he does, Leia calls out after him. “Oh, and Senator? There will be a ball. Which means your Jedi bodyguard needs a dress. I took the liberty of ordering some of my mother’s old gowns to be tailored and delivered to the rooms you’ll be staying in at the palace.”

He turns to stare at Leia incredulously, but the hint of a smile playing at her thin mouth is the only sign of her enjoying the torment she’s levying on him. “Really?” Poe asks sarcastically. “And let me guess, there’s only one bed?”

“Now, there’s a thought.” Leia waves a hand dismissively at him. “Get out.”

***

Poe straightens out the front of his ceremonial robes; they’re a pure white, the edges and trim a sky blue. They’re Yavinese colors, and he’s beyond proud to wear them.

True to Leia’s prediction, the Peace Ceremony had gone on without a hitch, security posted every few feet, and Rey a constant shadow to him as he walked in the parade of Senators. Poe secretly thinks that the worst threat to his safety is Re’tha, as the petty Coruscanti senator tried to trip him up as they walked towards the palace.

As for the palace, it’s terribly splendid: and, the one-time home of Senator Organa’s mother. Poe remembers well the news breaking when he was 20; the news that Organa and Skywalker were siblings, and at that, the children of none other than Padme Amidala - a legendary politician - and Anakin Skywalker - a fallen Jedi who became Darth Vader. Leia had broken the news herself, rather than allow it to fester as rumor and ruin her career, and it had been a major cause for Ben and Poe’s massive fight ten years prior.

But, the Tooka’s out of the bag now, and most of the galaxy had seemingly accepted that great good could come from great evil. Senator Organa had been elected First Senator a few years after the news broke, and her popularity remains untouchable.

The ball is set to begin in a few minutes, and Poe’s supposed to walk in with other members of the Select Senate. More than a few holo-recorders will be on him; after all, he’s the son of famous Rebel heroes who were massively influential in the peacetime accords following the end of the war. There are holos from his childhood declaring him “The Spark of the Rebellion.” And, there’s no doubt that he’s the most recognizable Senator, due to a photo of him rescuing a small family from a speeder crash that had been spread across the galaxy a few years back.

So, Poe grits his teeth and waits for the onslaught of irritating questions that will be directed at him, for the inevitable performance of being interested that he’ll have to project. Balls are fine, he supposes, but he’d rather be on the floor of the Senate, pushing for this damn slavery bill to pass, rather than be here prancing around like a painted -

Someone next to him gasps, and Poe looks up sharply from where he’d been glowering at the stone floor, waiting for the signal to walk in with the other senators. The person who gasped is looking over his shoulder, and a few others are looking in the same direction, so Poe pivots to follow. His mouth pops open in surprise.

Rey is walking towards them, sweeping, really. Gone are her robes from earlier in the day, her austere Jedi robes that hide her form admirably well. In their place is a stunning gown, diaphanous and a delicate yellow; the yellow fades into a pretty shade of blush, and then into a twilight purple towards the bottom, and the sleeves billow out from where they’re held up by gold, metallic bands on her mid-bicep. The entire dress is held up by a regal collar around her elegant neck, and a solid amount of her shoulders and the top of her chest are exposed.

In a word, she’s magnificent. But Poe doesn’t really have words, not anymore.

“Senator,” Rey greets him shyly as she draws up next to him, and he notices the intricate braiding of her hair, looping around her head like a crown, and then drawn back into a bun at the back of her head. The dress floats around her while she comes to a stop, and Poe swallows, hard, trying to shake the feeling of being smacked over the head.

“Rey.” He corrects himself quickly. “Master Rey, it’s - it’s good to see you again.”

“You just saw me an hour ago.” Rey seems to have no problem maintaining her usual demeanor, playful but a little shy, and she smiles down at the train of her dress. “I look ridiculous, don’t I?”

“You’re gorgeous,” Poe says softly, and he fights back a groan at the way her blush spreads along her neck, disappearing around the collar. He wants to trace the collar with his fingertips, he wants to trace _under_ it with his fingertips, he wants -

The trumpets blare, and the other senators start to walk forward with their various partners and attendants. Poe clears his throat and offers his arm to Rey, and she slips her hand through it, leaving it in the crook of his elbow. They walk in step, quietly, as they enter the ballroom to the staggering applause of the gathered assembly. Normally, Poe would put up an effort and wave to the cameras, wave to the people, but he can’t take his eyes off of Rey. If she feels his eyes on her, she doesn’t comment, instead smiling graciously but restrained, gazing around with a detached air that could suggest politeness, but Poe knows enough to recognize it as vigilance.

He’s introduced as he walks onto the floor, and Rey hesitates, her hand slipping from his elbow, to his forearm, to his wrist, as he continues to walk forward. “You’re coming with me, right, Sunshine?” The name fits so well, between the way she brings light back to his life, and the dress she wears, a dress that looks like the sunrise.

“Okay,” Rey whispers, and she accepts his hand. There’s some light laughter from those near them who watched the senator from Yavin convince a beautiful young woman to escort him - no doubt thinking that she’s too good for him, and Poe knows that they’re absolutely right - but Poe can’t be karked. The feeling of being smacked over the head does not go away, not at all, with Rey at his side, the floating candlelight illuminating her hair and turning it a dark, rich chestnut.

“You really are gorgeous,” Poe comments, as they line up at the end of the open floor. Other senators are announced, and he reluctantly lets go of Rey’s hand to clap for them.

“It’s the dress.” Rey sighs as she runs her hand along the delicate material. “It’s so lovely. Leia lent it to me; it was her mother’s. I’ve...never worn or even seen anything this beautiful.”

“It’s not just the dress,” Poe insists after they finish clapping for the senator from Akiva. “It’s you.” She opens her mouth to protest, but Poe shakes his head, trailing his hand along one of her flowing sleeves. “No. You’re gorgeous tonight, Rey, but...between you and me, you’re just as gorgeous in your tunic, or your robes. It’s all you.”

Rey’s mouth opens like she’s going to say something, but nothing comes out, and instead she shakes her head, looking almost upset. Poe doesn’t push it, he’s already pushed too much, and they continue clapping for the other senators. Then, when they’ve all lined up, the first song is announced.

“Dance with me?” Poe asks, smiling crookedly at her. He holds a hand out to her, and Rey takes it almost reluctantly.

“I don’t want to embarrass you.”

“You could never.” Poe pulls her close, and holds their hands between them as the band strikes up a waltz that he’s fairly certain has origins on Hosnian Prime. His hand goes to the dip of Rey’s waist, and he grips her there, his fingers landing on her mid-back. He freezes for a moment; there’s no material under his fingers. “Um.”

“There’s no back to this.” Rey shrugs, and Poe tries very hard to focus on a small point across the ballroom, trying not to even _think_ about what Rey’s bare back might look like, it’s bad enough that he knows what it _feels_ like, and gods, he’s going to hell.

They begin to move, and Rey’s uncertain at first, but Poe whispers the counts to her, and some very basic instructions, and soon they’re moving smoothly across the floor.

“Can I tell you something?” Rey stares over his shoulder, her hand light over his robes, and Poe nods.

“Course you can. Whatever you want, Sunshine.”

“Um.” They twirl for a few more seconds, redirect, and waltz the other way. By this point, they’re attracting more than a few stares. “Do you remember that night? The night we...fought?”

Poe winces. “Hard to forget.”

“Yes. Well, after I saw you with...the other senator.” Rey flushes, but doesn’t comment on what she _thinks_ she saw, or what she _almost_ saw, and Poe tries not to hate himself. “I...well, I don’t know what I felt. Sort of like...a rathtar, clawing at my insides.”

 _Jealousy,_ Poe realizes. _She felt jealous?_

“So, I had to get out of there. To get out of my head.” Rey never talks this much, at least, not about her emotions - her lengthiest speech to him so far had been about funding for orphanages’ job training programs.

“I remember. You went dancing.” She’d been furious with him, and Poe remember his own rathtar boiling in his gut at the thought of someone else’s hands on _his_ Jedi. He flinches away from the possessive thought, sternly reminds himself that Rey is her own and no one else’s, and they continue to dance. Rey looks nervous, now.

“That’s the thing. I never...said I went dancing, but you assumed I did, so I let you. I just left the apartment.” Poe looks at her in surprise, his voice catching in his throat. Rey casts her eyes to the side, sheepishly. “I was … well, I was sparring with your security team.”

She’d come back with her face flushed, Poe remembers, still slightly out of breath, and while his imagination at the time had gone to a meathead pawing at her in a dingy club, she’d actually been…

“I kicked their asses,” Rey comments idly, smiling to herself. “I was so mad at you. But, that means this is my” - she clears her throat - “First time.”

“I’m honored,” Poe says honestly, and without meaning to, pulls her closer by his grip on her waist. “You’re doing very well.”

“I have a good teacher.” Her smile is dazzling, and Poe loses himself in it, drifting closer and closer to her. Rey looks celestial in the lights of the ballroom, her dress billowing around them both, and as they continue to move together, a light sheen appears on her freckled shoulders. Months ago, Poe had caught himself staring at these exact same freckles while she meditated; now, he holds her in his arms, and he realizes he wants to do _more_ than count them. He wants to count them with his tongue. Even the ones he can’t see.

He loves her, he wants her, he loves her; it’s a twisting undercurrent to each of his heartbeats, and the waltz continues on, the rest of the galaxy unaware that Poe’s burning alive for the woman in his arms.

Rey, for her part, matches his steps, and neither of them realize that they’re attracting quite a few audience members. Several other pairs stop dancing to watch them, the senator from Yavin and his blushing partner - and there are whispers of _Isn’t that a Jedi?_ And _How scandalous!,_ not to mention, _When’s the wedding?_ And as the whispers build, one tired pair of eyes watch from across the ballroom, shaking his head, and wondering what his sister has done.

Luke Skywalker pulls the hood up higher on his robes and leaves the ballroom, but not before tugging on the sleeve of his most trusted Jedi Knight. Ben Solo follows him out into the hallway, and Luke walks in silence until they reach an alcove he deems acceptable.

“You saw it too?”

“Yes, Uncle.” Ben shakes his head. “I’ll speak to her at once.”

“It is odd, though.” Luke rubs his beard with his hand. “What I sense between them does not appear to be born of the Dark Side.”

“But it is not of the Light, either,” Ben points out. “It’s something in between.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Luke stares out onto the grounds through the large window in front of them. “Should we fear what we do not know? Fear leads to the Dark Side, after all.”

“Spare me the philosophy, Master.” Ben shoves his uncle playfully, and Luke shoves him right back. “Do you want me to speak to her or not?”

“I sensed no fear in our young Rey tonight. Perhaps her love for the senator is pure.”

“Is _his_? Because I know Poe Dameron, Uncle, and he’s probably thinking about one thing.”

Luke elbows Ben at that, and his nephew pretends to groan, clutching his side. “Just...keep an eye on them for now. And between you and me, I’ve always thought that the Code needed a little...spicing up.”

Luke walks away, but his nephew calls out after him. “Careful, Luke. You’re starting to sound like my mother.”

***

Poe doesn’t know if he should blame the Corellian Sunrise that Leia convinced him to drink, or the flurry of activity from the last three days - or even the stolen moment he shared with Rey out on a balcony after their waltz, where she leaned her elbows on the stone wall and gazed out to the sea, and Poe tried his hardest not to stare at her figure, at the seeming miles of skin exposed by her dress, tried his hardest until she whispered, _I don’t mind if you look,_ over her shoulder, her eyes hooded, and he nearly lost his self control right then and there - but when he finally falls asleep that night, his dream about Rey is especially vivid.

_He rolls through the grass - not on Yavin for once, and somehow this dream feels different from all the others, the air lighter, the light clearer - and he laughs wildly. He rolls to a stop at the bottom of a hill, and a woman’s shrieking laughter follows him, a small body slamming into his a moment later. “Sorry!”_

_Rey’s still laughing when he grabs her and rolls so that he’s hovering on top of her. “You’re forgiven.”_

_She surges up to kiss him, and Poe makes it easier on her, swooping down to press her into the grass, his body, apparently, well-acquainted with the shape of hers. His hands trail along her sides, her green dress soft under his palms, and Poe stops with his hand at her thigh. Rey nods, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright, and he pulls her dress up carefully._

_“Quickly,” she whispers. “They’ll come looking for us soon.”_

_“Who’s they?” Poe wonders aloud as he gathers her skirts around her waist. Rey fumbles with the drawstring of his pants, and Poe groans when she takes him in hand, her small hand working expertly around his cock._

_“They’ll take you away from me.” Tears are in her eyes, and Poe pauses, gripping her wrist and pulling her hand away from his aching erection, pressing her hand back into the grass above her head and kissing her languidly._

_“No one can take me away from you,” he promises thickly, moving to kiss down her neck, along the top of her dress. He pulls it down slightly, exposing the soft swell of her breast, and he kisses her nipple, too, a sharp squeak of pleasure escaping her mouth. Poe smiles and drags himself back up to kiss her lips once more, and Rey’s hands tangle in his hair, before one hand drifts down his back, her nails giving the right amount of sharp pleasure as they dig into his skin. “I love you.”_

_Has he said those words out loud before? Their hips are rolling together, and suddenly Poe wants to stop, wants to check that this_ isn’t _the first time, that they’ve done this before; if this is the first, or the only, he needs it to be different, needs it to be better, needs her to feel worshipped. But their hips keep rolling together, and while he never slips inside her, he slips over her, over and over again, and her eyes flutter shut and he swears he can feel the way she comes for him._

Poe jolts upright, panting, and it’s abrupt enough that BB-8 blinks to life in the corner of the room. “I’m fine,” he says quickly. “Go back to sleep, buddy.” The droid powers back down, and Poe stares down at himself in mild amusement. He gets up, pulling the nice sheets back from his body, and changes into fresh pants, and he yanks off the ruined sheet and throws it in the corner. He imagines explaining to the maid-bot the next day why exactly his sheet is dirty, and he snorts to himself, pulling the still-clean comforter up and over his body.

“Stay down,” he warns his traitorous dick. A small flash of the dream comes to him, Rey sighing under him, the tops of her breasts exposed by her pulled-down dress, and his dick twitches treacherously. “Maker, help me.”

Swearing to himself that he won’t have any more conscious lewd thoughts about his innocent Jedi bodyguard, not if he can help it, Poe drops back down onto the pillows and eventually falls back asleep.

The next dream isn’t as pleasant.

_The sky flames red overhead, screaming like a broken, infected wound. The ships are recognizable as TIE-Fighters, and Poe stumbles through a horrifying battleground._

_Not a battleground. It’s a temple._

_At least, it was._

_Fire licks at his feet as he sprints, trying to find a sign of life. Broken bodies of children he’s never seen before lie amongst the rubble, and a sob builds in his throat. His steps falter, but he keeps running._

_He trips over a form lying in what used to be a doorway. The brown robes are unmistakable, and with a shaking hand, he pulls back the hood._

_Luke Skywalker stares at the sky, his blue eyes still gentle despite the fear in his expression. Blood weeps from his hairline. He doesn’t move._

**_No._ **

_Poe stumbles to his feet again, choking on his tears, acrid smoke filling his lungs. There doesn’t seem to be any sign of the combatants, only innocents, Jedi. His heart screeches to a halt at the dead body of Leia Organa, and he stumbles once more at Ben Solo, his face lax, eyes wide open, brown, unseeing._

_Ben’s been cut almost in half, and Poe retches, violently, where he kneels at Ben’s side. He doesn’t understand, he was here, why couldn’t he stop this? He couldn’t stop any of this - it’s his fault._

_Somehow, he knows there’s one more thing he has to see._

_A wicked, cruel voice begins to taunt him, a withered voice, almost snake-like. It winds through his ears and down his spine, and Poe drags himself to his feet._ **_You did this. You failed._ ** _His steps are reluctant, staggering, and the voice continues._

 **_Everyone you love will die. And it will be because you are not strong enough._ ** _He thinks he can see a figure, trapped under a large section of the temple._

_They aren’t moving, but he forces himself to go on._

**_He will die, and it will be your fault because you refused to know the Force better. The Jedi can’t protect him, little girl._ **

_Confusion rips through Poe, and distantly, he hears someone shouting for him._

_He looks at the final, broken body, and his breath catches;_

_It’s himself, dust lining his face, blood smeared at the corner of his mouth. The world around him surges and the sky seems to shatter at a bloodcurling scream that emerges seemingly from nowhere._

_“_ **_Poe! Wake up, Poe.”_ ** _It’s not the same voice as before, but Poe feels a shift, the ground tilting underneath him as the terrifying wail of grief continues._ **_“You must help her. Go to her, Poe Dameron.”_ ** _The man’s voice is Coruscanti, and vaguely familiar. “_ **_Go!”_ **

Poe falls out of bed, as though someone had physically shoved him. The voice echoes in his ears. “ _She needs your help._ ”

Rey.

He slips trying to stand up, and BB-8 whirs to life. Poe sprints for the door and runs down the hallway, cursing when he realizes he went to the right - Rey’s quarters back on Chandrila are to the right, but they’re on godsdamned Naboo, not Chandrila, so he pivots and runs the other way, the cool air hitting his bare chest as he runs.

Poe bangs on Rey’s door, desperately, unsure of why he feels so confident that something’s wrong. “Rey?” There’s no answer, so he bangs again. “Rey, open up.” There’s no answer, but he hears something slam against the wall near the door. “Fuck.”

Beebee nudges him out of the way and pops open the control panel to do the door. After a gleeful squeak and a powerful zapping, the doors hiss open, and Poe steps forward, only to be slammed backwards into the opposite wall.

The room is in utter chaos - plants and chairs float off the ground, and the lights flicker ominously.

Whatever pushed him backwards - Poe imagines it was quite literally the Force - doesn’t stop him when he staggers forward once more, into the maelstrom. Rey’s suspended off the bed, but not like she hovers during meditation. The blankets are twisted around her slender form, and Poe watches in horror as she screams painfully, as though being tortured.

“Rey!” He tugs on her ankle, but she only starts to thrash. “Oh, Maker.” He jumps up onto the bed and grabs her arms, shaking her slightly. “Rey, you need to wake up, please!” He manages to hold her still, and then she slumps.

He has to dive to catch her, but he does, and he twists so she lands half on him, and half on the bed. She gasps for breath, sobbing violently, and Poe’s too overcome with shock to say anything for a few seconds.

“Rey?”

“I’m sorry.” She sobs brokenly. “I’m so sorry-”

“I’m here.” He holds her tightly, and Rey clutches his bare shoulder. He wonders if she knows she’s awake (is she awake?). “I’m right here, sweetheart.”

“I had a terrible dream.” She weeps into his chest, and Poe rubs his hand along her back. “I - I -”

“You don’t have to explain.” _I’m pretty sure I saw it._ “It wasn’t real. It wasn’t.”

“He hurt you because of me.”

“Who’s he?” Poe stops rubbing her back at her odd statement, but Rey doesn’t elaborate. Instead, she just shakes in his arms, and Poe lets it go for the time being and focuses on comforting her. “You’re okay. I’ve got you, you’re okay.”

He risks pressing his lips into her hair, and Rey sniffs indelicately, her hand still clutching his shoulder tightly. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, Sunshine.” They adjust so Poe’s propped against the headboard, on his back, and Rey’s still half-lying on his chest. She looks up and rests her chin on his chest, and Poe finds himself unable to look away after their eyes meet. She’s still trembling, and all he wants is to find a way to make that stop, and as they drift closer and closer together, something inexorable and intoxicating building between them. He wants what his first dream promised, wants it so badly his teeth ache  from not asking for it aloud, and here, where they’re both terribly vulnerable, here, where all he wants is to make her smile, to make her happy, he knows they are very much in danger of doing the one thing they absolutely should not.

“Poe?” Rey whispers, when their lips are six inches apart.

“Yeah?”

“Will you stay here? Tonight?” Rey’s eyes don’t leave his, even while his eyes travel frequently to the bud of her mouth. “I don’t think I can fall asleep again.” He nods, his hand tightening slightly where it’s gripping her shoulder. “I’m scared,” she admits, and immediately, whatever heady lust was building in his gut fades away.

“Don’t be,” he murmurs. Logically, he should be scared, after witnessing what Rey’s power can do. But he trusts her, and he wants to believe that was a fluke, and he’s almost already forgotten the terror of flying backwards, now that Rey is warm and real in his arms. “I’ll stay. And you won’t have to be scared. Not while I’m around.”

“I-” Rey stops whatever she was saying and carefully lowers her head back down to his chest, turning her face away from him. “Thank you.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.” Poe lets his arm drift along her side, up and down, in what he hopes is a soothing way. Rey makes a small noise in the back of her throat - and he slides, unstoppable, falling even more in love with her - and grabs his arm, pulling it tighter around her.

Her breath evens out first, blowing sweet and tempting across his bare chest, and Poe wishes violently that he’d stopped to put a shirt on when he ran here. But, the feeling of Rey pressed against him is too temptingly comforting, and Poe’s eyes close as well, pulling him into a deep slumber, entirely unbroken by dreams.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder what all that was about....
> 
> *cackles evilly*
> 
>  
> 
> Also: another update? what? I'm actually? Being? Better? 
> 
> Thank you for all your lovely comments on the last chapter, it was a huge factor in me wanting to publish again soon <3


	8. Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Rey discuss the aftermath of Rey's nightmare; after a startling realization of what his dreams mean, Poe and Rey share a moment that they might not be able to walk back from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Rey discusses her childhood abuse and neglect with Poe. Mentions of child abuse, but nothing too graphic.

The aqua-tinged light of Naboo breaks across the bed, and Poe shifts slightly, pulling the pillow he’d found in sleep closer to his body. His nose nuzzles against it, and he frowns, as the pillow is a little sleeker, a little smoother than he remembers. Then, the pillow mumbles something quietly, and Poe’s eyes open.

He groans against the sudden brightness, and then he stiffens when he remembers that he isn’t in his assigned bed. Rey, his Jedi bodyguard, his very off limits Jedi bodyguard, is cuddled up to his chest, her legs tangled with his - the absurdly small sleep shorts that she’s taken to wearing have ridden up while she sleeps, and Poe’s gaze shoots to the wall to avoid seeing something she doesn’t want him to see, or at the very least, hasn’t given him permission to see.

Somehow in the night, he’d wrapped himself around her, and as far as he can tell, she hadn’t minded too much. For a second, he lets himself imagine a different universe, one where she isn’t bound by duty: they’d wake up like this every day, and Rey would purr as he pulled his fingers through her hair, not that he’s ever done that, but he can just imagine that she’d appreciate it after a lifetime of taking care of herself. He’d kiss her shoulder, just once, maybe, and whisper  _ good morning, sweetheart,  _ into her freckled skin, and she’d giggle, that secret giggle he thinks only he’s heard, and she’d maybe let him chase that giggle along her throat, up to her lips; Rey would thread her slender fingers through his mussed curls when they kissed, and Poe would try not to deepen it too much, too busy enjoying the slow, soft morning, but Rey would angle her legs just so and pull him over, and Poe would go so, so easily, never able to say no to her for any reason, especially not -

Poe wakes up abruptly then, cursing himself and his half-awake daydream. It feels wrong to think about Rey like this, so wrong, when all she’s done is trust him enough to fall asleep in his arms. It’s a heady feeling, honestly, in its own right, that the most powerful person he’s ever met trusts him like this, trusts him to protect her from what haunts her. The last thing he should do is betray that trust by imagining  _ that  _ with her in his arms, still shaken from the night before. 

As though having heard him arrive at a finally halfway noble thought, Rey’s eyelashes flutter against her delicate skin, and she wakes up; Poe’s delighted to discover that Rey is not only barely coherent when she’s just woken up, she’s also a bit of a goblin, morning breath and all. Her face is puffy, from a combination of things, so Poe won’t tease her about that, but he’s greatly mollified to know that the most beautiful, incredible, powerful woman in the galaxy is absolutely useless in the few minutes after she wakes up.

Rey rubs her eyes, grumbling about something or other, and her hair is floating around her head like a disastrous halo; Poe smooths it back before he can think twice, and instead of swatting at him or stiffening his arms like he feared, Rey snuggles into his chest more, humming contentedly.

“Hey,” he whispers into her hair. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” She rubs her nose against his collarbone, and Poe stiffens now. He stares at the opposite wall guility, trying to get control of himself, because this is definitely not about him, or his body’s response to how close Rey is, how much closer she’s trying to get. “Thank you.”

“For what, sweetheart?” That damn word again.

“For … coming to help me last night. For staying.” She covers her eyes with her hand while she speaks, and Poe continues to stroke her hair in a way he hopes is soothing and not creepy. He also prays she can’t hear or feel the way his heart is slamming against his chest in all its damnable hope.

“I’ll never leave you,” he promises softly. “Not until you tell me to go.”

Rey stiffens at that, finally, and Poe watches horrified as her face turns red, and her breath hitches. 

“Did I say something wrong?”

Rey shakes her head and buries her face in his chest for a few minutes, and Poe has to fight against his every instinct to not beg her to tell him what happened. She’ll tell him if and when she’s ready, and he won’t push her a second before that.

It turns out to be sooner than he thought - after she wipes her eyes and pulls away from him slightly, her small hand still fisted in his sleep shirt, Poe watches as Rey takes a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes locked on the ceiling, while she summons the courage to tell him her story.

“I’ve been having nightmares since I was a child,” she begins, her voice only quavering on the first few words. “Dreams of my parents leaving me, of the desert swallowing me whole, of anyone who’d ever showed me an ounce of kindness being punished for helping a worthless little rat like me.”

Poe nudges her arm, wanting to tell her not to talk about herself like that, but he also doesn’t want to interrupt. He catalogs her statement and decides to convince her otherwise later on, when she’s not opening up to him. 

“It - it got worse after … Unkar bought me.”

_ Unkar.  _ He’s heard the name before, of course, when Rey told him haltingly of her time as a scavenger. It had flown under the radar, Unkar Plutt’s organization, because they were technically under contract. But, the way he wrote the contract, the way he controlled their lives, added onto the terms and length of their contract at his own whims, the way he gave out portions and controlled the scavengers through fear and starvation and manipulation...it wasn’t slavery in name, but it was slavery  _ de facto.  _

Poe’s never met the man, but he knows he hates him.

It only gets worse when more details slip out of Rey. “He would taunt me when I picked up scraps of food off the ground - he’d have his friends throw them in the dirt to watch me, or another one of the children, crawl for it. When we were down, they’d step on the food right before we got it, and they’d laugh even harder because we were still willing to eat it.” Revulsion tears through him, tangled hopelessly with the heartbreaking memory of Rey’s face the first time he offered to buy her lunch at the state house. He can’t help the noise of pain that tears out of him, and he drops his head to Rey’s shoulder. She cards her fingers through his hair for a moment before Poe forces himself to sit upright again because there is no way in the hells he’s letting her worry about him right now. That is not what this is about. 

He thinks she’s done, and he’s sifting around for the right thing to say because it isn’t about his anger, it’s about her pain, but Rey keeps going. “It was worse when he wouldn’t let us drink. I think the nightmares were the worst then, when I was stumbling around and falling asleep everywhere. And, if I slept for too long, they’d steal my haul out from underneath me. I could never tell if it was Unkar’s main thugs, or other children, but if I slept for more than two hours, no matter what I was sleeping, or how close I held my scrap, I’d wake up and it was gone.”

She takes a shuddering breath, her eyes locked on the ceiling again. “I found a bunch of stims in a crashed cruiser once. I took handfuls of them at a time, trying to stay awake; I was awake for over 80 hours once, and I was hallucinating in the middle of the desert by the time I collapsed. I would have died out there, but” - Rey wipes her eyes with the palm of her hand, smearing the tears from her face as though they were mild inconveniences, as though she wasn’t aware that each tear carved part of Poe’s soul open in an irrevocable way - “a happabore found me. I’d helped him a few weeks before, pulled some junk metal out of his snout, and he found me collapsed on the sand and pulled me to an oasis. I stayed there for a few days, trying to get healthy enough to go back to the outpost.”

Somehow, she finds it in her to smile, and smile fondly. “The happabores kept bringing me food, but it was mostly food that happabores could eat. I tried to explain that I couldn’t eat a full cactus, but they were so excited that they were trying to feed me.” She laughs, and Poe smiles at her, but he doesn’t think she misses the tears in his eyes. 

“Did,” Poe takes a breath, trying to control himself. “Did Unkar ever face justice? For what he’d done to you?”

“No.” Rey shrugs and looks away again, sadness and happiness still inextricably linked in her expression. “Ben came and found me one day, after…” She trails off, her face pink again, and Poe doesn’t want to push, he doesn’t, this is not about the growling monster lingering in his chest, but -

“After what?”

“He’d beaten me.” Rey says it matter-of-factly, and Poe makes a note to fly to Jakku in about three hours and find this man, drag him to a courthouse, use every last connection he has to ruin his life. “He did that a lot, to be fair, but that time was...bad. I - I don’t know what I did, but I must have used the Force somehow, and I threw him fifty feet backwards, into a pile of scrap.”

“Good,” Poe says savagely, and Rey gives him a searching look. He can’t quell the roar of approval in his chest that Rey had been able to hurt that monster back, and he doesn’t see a Jedi look of judgment in her eyes. Instead, she looks almost appraising. “So, he’s dead?”

“No.” Rey laughs. “No, Ben felt my anger in the Force, and it’s what he needed to be able to find me. He came with Master Luke, they bartered with Unkar, and they ended up buying out my contract.”

“What about the other children?” Poe can’t help the question, but he regrets it when Rey’s face falls further. “They saved the other children, too?”

“No.” Rey curls up on her side, towards him, and Poe wraps an arm around her waist. She buries her face in his chest again as she whispers, “They didn’t save them.”

_ Because they weren’t strong in the Force,  _ his mind unhelpfully supplies, and Poe wonders, not for the first time, if the Jedi are really all that good to begin with. He also realizes, with a startling rage, that this might be why Rey feels so indebted to the Jedi Order, why she had responded with such anger and denial to him demanding to know if she’d sacrificed her freedom to become a Jedi - they’d  _ bought  _ her contract, but had they ever stopped and explained to her, really explained, really consistently demonstrated, that she didn’t owe them anything for it? That it wasn’t swapping out her old contract as a Scavenger, and switching to a new one as a Jedi?

Everything Poe knows about Luke Skywalker - kind, a little dotty sometimes, starry-eyed, idealistic - tells him that maybe Luke hadn’t sat down and thought this through very clearly. And he has no doubt that Ben Solo loves the woman who’s currently trembling in Poe’s arms, but Ben grew up in utter wealth and comfort, and probably had no concept of the extensive psychological damage wrought by being  _ owned  _ by someone.

Poe’s made the promise to the Force before, but he promises again: he’ll spend every waking moment of his life trying to get Rey to know how much he respects her, and he adds on something very specific to that promise. He’ll spend every waking moment making sure Rey knows that she has agency wherever he’s concerned, that she can make any choice she wants, and not second-guess it based on what she assumes is duty. 

“I feel like the Force is trying to tell me something.” Poe stops his train of thought to listen to what Rey is saying. “With the nightmares.” Rey sits up fully and stares out the window, and Poe sits up with her - somehow, they manage to not dislodge his arm from around her waist, and Poe tries not to think too hard about how Rey isn’t pushing him away. She leans into him, and he takes that as a signal that he can wrap his other arm around her, too. 

“What do you think it’s saying?” He studies her face carefully, and he finds that isn’t blank like it sometimes is when Rey talks about the Force, but it isn’t animated either. Her expression is distant, thoughtful. 

“That I need to be careful.” She blows out her breath in one go before leaning into him more. “That I might...lose something, if I’m not…”

_ Strong enough,  _ the voice from the vision that Poe shared with her taunts. He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, not wanting her to fill in the gap with those words.  _ You’re plenty strong,  _ he wants to tell her.  _ Stronger than anyone I know.  _

“I get them too,” Poe says instead. Rey tilts her head towards him but doesn’t look at him. “Nightmares, I mean. Terrible ones. They were worse when I was younger, when I was at the Academy.” 

Rey doesn’t respond right away, but when she does, her eyes tighten painfully. “Jedi aren’t supposed to get nightmares.”

Before Poe can respond, Rey freezes, her eyes widening as she looks out the window of the palace towards the sea of Naboo. 

“What is it?” Poe squints, following her line of sight, but there’s nothing there but sunlight, and blue sky, out past the walled perimeter of the palace. “What do you see?”

Rey shakes herself fully before dropping her face down to hide in Poe’s arm. “Nothing,” she murmurs into his sleep-warmed skin; he pretends it doesn’t prickle, the way gooseflesh erupts under her hot breath, under her touch. “I thought I saw” - she shakes her head, rubbing her nose along his bicep - “It was just a trick of the light.”

He cards his fingers through her messy hair once more, and Rey makes a soft noise of approval; Poe lets his eyes drift to the window once more, and he blinks twice when he sees a tall shadow there that wasn’t there before. It lingers for only a second before vanishing into the bright sunlight.

***

_ Poe wakes up on Yavin, under the Force tree. It seems everyone else is already here.  _

_ His heart leaps right out of his chest when he sees what occasion he’s stumbled onto: Rey’s walking towards him wearing a white dress that looks like it’s constructed of starlight. Her hair is bound in a braided crown, and she’s clutching flowers of Yavin close to her chest. Poe stumbles to his feet, sure that all the stars in the galaxy are in his eyes, and his breath catches and doesn’t quite come back.  _

_ The Yavinese wedding march is undeniable as it drifts across the sweetgrass towards them.  _

_ He can see Kes and Leia in the front of the gathered crowd, tears in his father’s eyes, and Leia smiling proudly. She looks - strangely heartbroken, and Poe’s brow furrows for a moment before it smoothes out. If Leia and Kes are here, that means everyone knows about him and Rey, and he looks around eagerly for Luke and Ben. _

_ Neither are there. _

_ Come to think of it, Rey looks strangely sad as well, if strikingly lovely. He looks back at her, and she’s smiling steadily at him, but she’s also...thinner than he’s ever seen her in the last few months. Her arms are wiry, and a terrible scar stretches across her right bicep, angry and red - it looks like a burn mark. Poe tries to focus on the joy of the moment, the joy of seeing Rey in a wedding dress with - that’s so weird. _

_ Poe blinks and squints into the light of Yavin to confirm those in attendance. _

_ Temmin Wexley - does he still go by Snap? - is right behind Leia, his arm around Kare Kun, who couldn’t  _ stand  _ him when they were at the Academy. But now, she’s heavily pregnant, and a wedding band glints on both of their hands. _

_ A few dozen pilots Poe recognizes, and some he doesn’t, are mixed in with the crowd, and oddly enough, no one’s wearing civilian clothes. Is there a war here, in the future? Is that why Rey looks so thin, so tired? Why Leia smiles so bittersweetly? Does that mean Luke and Ben - no. Poe can’t think about that, not when Rey’s nearing him. _

_ He holds his hand out to her, but she walks right past him, and his throat tightens - is she not here to marry him, then? But Poe turns to follow her onward march, and he sees himself under the tree. _

_ Poe’s relief is palpable, painting the colors of the dream in shades of gold and blue, surging throughout the field. He also sees BB-8 rattling towards them, whirring anxiously before it screeches to a halt at Poe and Rey’s feet, offering up a little claw clutching a small bag. Poe laughs uproariously while he bends down to collect the bag, rubbing the droid’s belly while thanking it.  _

_ With dream-Poe kneeling, Poe can now see a handsome black man who’s laughing at BB-8’s antics. Rey reaches out to take the man’s hand, and they smile at each other fondly, with a kind of love that makes Poe’s teeth ache to see.  _

_ When dream-Poe straightens up and pulls out two rings - one silver and familiar, the other thicker, silver, intended for a man’s finger - the man next to them starts to speak. _

_ “Family is a tricky thing,” he says in a pleasant, warm voice. Poe likes it immediately. “For instance, no one expects to find their family after she chases them down in a market, waving a scary stick, and screaming about stealing a droid.” _

_ Beebee beeps proudly, and everyone in attendance laughs. “Wuss,” Rey mutters to the man, and he sticks his tongue out at her before laughing.  _

_ “Then again, no one expects to find their family after stealing a TIE-fighter and escaping from a death-ship, either, all because you needed a pilot.” _

_ “Fair enough,” dream-Poe chortles. “Although to be fair, you did lose me pretty quickly after that.” _

_ The other man shrugs good-naturedly, but Rey reaches out and tugs at Poe’s sleeve. “Hey,” she whispers, eyes sad. “Not funny.” Dream-Poe takes her hand and kisses the knuckles tenderly before releasing her.  _

_ “From my perspective, the family that you find is worth absolutely everything. You fight together - and sometimes you fight each other, but usually only when someone takes the last roll in the mess” - more laughter from the audience, while Rey ducks her head, blushing - “You fight for each other, and you fight for what matters most. It’s no small honor that my two best friends in the galaxy asked me to be here today, and it’s no small joy that I feel knowing that my two best friends will soon be bound for life, to love, support, cherish, and fight for one another, ‘til death do they part.” _

_ Hearing this man refer to himself as Poe and Rey’s best friend makes Poe feel...impossibly lonely.  _

_ When will he meet this man, if the Force is showing him a vision of his future? When will they reach this point, where he and Rey can be together - where Rey truly loves him back, enough to marry a sad sack Senator who’s loved her in secret for so long - where their best friend marries them in view of their friends and family? _

_ Poe wipes his eyes and looks away for a second while their friend continues to talk about love, friendship, and freedom. In the crowd, he can see a familiar face, and he looks a little closer. _

_ Iolo Arana is watching with a broad smile, elbowing the pilot at his side while he laughs at something the officiant says. His golden eyes flash in the light of Yavin, and he looks as handsome and happy as ever. Poe cranes his neck to see who’s on the other side of Iolo, looks for the person who should definitely be there.  _

_ Iolo’s husband isn’t there. _

_ Something not too different from a flock of steelvultures erupts painfully in Poe’s stomach. Iolo, as far as he can tell, isn’t even wearing a wedding band. Did they have a falling out? Is he somewhere else in the crowd? _

_ Poe studies the assembled pilots in increasing panic - his eyes flit from face to face, but none of them register as -  _

_ Where is Muran? He wouldn’t just...skip out on the most important day of Poe’s life, unless they’d had a massive fight, or unless....unless…. _

_ “No,” he whispers, shaking his head. “No.” He refuses to think about it and instead returns his focus to himself and Rey, walking closer to greedily steal a better look at Rey in her wedding dress. He pushes his echoing concern about the absence of Anton Muran from his mind, and stands side-by-side with the dream-version of himself. _

_ That’s when he notices it. _

_ Much in the same way the dream-Rey is thinner, more tired-looking, this Poe is...much smaller than he is. _

_ Slender-hipped and lithe, the Poe marrying this Rey is barely an inch taller than his bride - not counting the hair, of course. Poe is at least three inches taller than dream-Poe, and while the smaller stature could be explained away by lack of access to square meals for a few years, his body type is just...different. Odd.  _

_ Dream-Poe looks more like real-Poe did at 21, when he was training to be a pilot, spending most of his time in null-grav, and consuming military rations, while he tried to stay fit and trim to keep in the cockpit. Poe had gained almost thirty pounds in six months when he left the Academy, and had shot up another four inches in even less time. While he certainly isn’t an incredibly tall person, not by any stretch of the imagination, Poe isn’t a small man. But this dream version of Poe is.  _

_ Does that mean - could this be -  _

_ There is no doubt in the way the Force sings through this dream. This is the  _ truth _ , this is something written in time and space, not a false construction of Poe’s own subconscious; he is a visitor here, as he’s been a visitor to all these dreams and visions, which would mean... _

_ “Figured it out?” Poe blinks at the achingly familiar voice and tears his eyes away from the beautiful sight of him sliding his ring onto Rey’s finger - tears his eyes away for the only thing in the galaxy that could distract him from marrying Rey. _

_ Shara Bey’s watching the proceedings with a soft smile, and she holds her hand out to Poe. He reaches back  without thinking, and a noise of grief staggers from his throat when he actually touches her.  _

_ “Mama.” The childish word slips out easily, and Poe’s throat burns with tears, his body weighed down by the still-constant agony of having lost her over twenty years ago. Shara’s smile tightens as does her hand around his, and Poe walks towards her slowly. He can hear the man who’s so familiar but so unknown to him telling short-Poe to kiss Rey, but he can’t look over to see that particular dream come true, not when the steady dream of several decades is true right in front of him. _

_ He knows, somehow, that this also isn’t a dream. His mother is actually here.  _

_ “Mijo.” His mother’s hand does not tremble the way his does when she strokes a curl behind his ear, and Poe stares down at her lovely, lively face, just as beautiful and fierce and wonderful as it was when she was alive. “Amor de mi vida.” _

_ “How?”  _

_ “I had the same question.” Shara shrugs with one shoulder, something they have in common. “But if I get to see two of you, I’m certainly not going to complain.” _

_ “You can see us both?” Poe looks over his shoulder, and yeah, he’s still kissing Rey, clutching her to him, while their friends roar with laughter, and Leia pretends to roll her eyes. Even Leia looks different, her hair short, to her ears, wearing a crisp uniform that looks oddly familiar. He looks back to his mother, who’s still studying his face carefully. “Gods, I’ve missed you.” _

_ “Tell me about it.” Shara puts her hands on his shoulder and squeezes. “So, what do  _ you _ do?” He doesn’t miss the inflection in the question, and it doesn’t strike him as odd anymore. _

_ “I’m a Senator.” Shara makes a noise of pleased pride, and Poe blushes, ducking his head. “For Yavin, just about ten years now.” _

_ “My son, the senator,” Shara croons before her face slips into something wary. “And - your father?” _

_ “Dad?” Poe blinks, and looks over at dream-Kes. “Dad’s still on Yavin, we talk at least once a week. Still running the farm and everything. I’ll go visit him when I go back to campaign in a few weeks.” _

_ “Good.” Shara’s voice is undeniably sad, and that worries Poe infinitely. “Make sure you tell him -” She cuts herself off, but Poe nods, his throat tightening.  _

_ “Of course.” Before he can second guess himself, he bends down and wraps his arms around Shara, burying his face in her shoulder. “I love you, mama.” _

_ She squeezes him tight around the middle, and he doesn’t think he imagines the tears in her laugh. “I love you too, starling. But it’s time to wake up, in your own story.” _

“My own-” Poe blinks and coughs, sitting up in his bed. 

He stares at the wall opposite to his bed on Chandrila, stares at the wall that separates from him and Rey - and he realizes that these dreams haven’t been giving him hope or a vision of the future at all.

This is something else entirely, and he has a feeling it’s going to break his heart.

***

“It passes,” Leia declares, banging the gavel against her podium. “Peacekeeping forces will be sent out to Core Worlds and the Outer Rim immediately to investigate the vestiges of the slave trade, and officers will be dispatched from the New Republic Navy and Army to bring those who stand accused of trafficking and possession of slaves to justice.”

The senators file out of the hall, arguments and chatter breaking out here and there. The senator from Yavin sweeps from the room, heading to the lifts that lead to his office on the 48th floor; at his side is a beautiful, austere Jedi, whose hazel eyes scan the growing crowd with a detachment that borders on cool. Once the lift doors close, they turn to each other and smile, but the moment is interrupted when another senator gets the doors open and jumps on, hitting the button for the 50th floor. 

He talks to the Yavinese senator, pretending the Jedi isn’t there; the senator from Corulag entirely misses the way the Yavinese senator throws daggers at him with his eyes. The Jedi hides a smile behind her hand as they ascend rapidly, and at the 48th floor, they both exit with no shortage of relief.

Once they’re safely ensconced in the offices for the senator from Yavin, though, the celebration is immediate and wild.

“We did it!” Poe crows, grabbing Rey’s hands and spinning her in a circle. She laughs and lets him, her hair falling out of her braid by the end of the multiple revolutions he puts them through. “We really did it!”

“You did it,” Rey points out. “I just stood there and watched.”

“No,” Poe shakes his head. “No, you standing there gave me the strength I needed, kept me calm. I kept thinking about all of the lives the bill would help, all the things you’ve told me about life in the Outer Rim, and it reminded me of why I got into this karking mess of a job to begin with, and  _ Maker,  _ we did it, we really did it!” 

He pulls Rey in like they’re dancing, his arm around her waist and distantly an alarm rings in his head, reminding him that this isn’t his place, that he’d promised himself that he’d be better than this, but he can’t focus for the light in her eyes. “And gods, sweetheart, you’re – you’re incredible, Rey, honestly, just,” he kisses her quickly, his hands sliding up to frame her jaw, and he leaves them there, rests his forehead on hers as he whispers, “You’re so incredible. Thank you.”

Then it hits him.

Violently.

Like a bantha stampede.

_ He just kissed a Jedi. He just kissed  _ **_his_ ** _ Jedi. He just kissed his Rey.  _

While Poe’s kissed plenty of people the way he just kissed her - and often platonically, as Yavin doesn’t share the hang-ups about physical intimacy other systems do - he knows he could never pretend that he could kiss Rey in any way that was platonic. And he just kissed her  _ without permission.  _

“Oh, oh shit,” Poe opens his eyes and pulls back. Rey looks shocked to say the least, but she hasn’t thrown him through the air yet, so maybe she won’t murder him. “I’m so sorry, I just –”

“Do it again,” Rey insists, her small hands curling around his waist. 

“W-what?” It’s Poe’s turn to stare. 

“Kiss me again, Senator, please,” Rey leans up onto her toes, and Poe tilts his head down the barest amount to meet her in the middle, and her hands are tangling in his hair. Poe groans into her mouth, feels her nose pressing against his cheek while she tests out different angles, her lips revealing her inexperience; but, he’s being driven wild by her enthusiasm, by her absolute dedication to this embrace, and that’s what has him stumbling forward, one arm around her waist, the other stroking along her shoulder, her spine, her neck, her hair, anything he can touch while they blindly navigate backwards until…

_ Yes,  _ she’s up against a solid surface and he can press against her properly, her legs parting by total instinct to make room for him. He’s incredibly hard, harder than he’s been in years with his clothes still on, and Rey’s hips are surging into his, untamed, uncontrolled. She’s all teeth and hands and whimpers of excitement that he swallows eagerly. Eventually he grabs her hands from where they’re fumbling with the front of his ceremonial robe, and he pins them to the wall over her head – not the wall, the kriffing window, because yeah, in his infinite wisdom, he pinned a goddamn Jedi up against a glass window in full view of Chandrila’s populace and is grinding against her like some lovesick teenager in a speeder. 

But kriff, he isn’t about to stop. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he whispers against her impossibly soft lips, and Rey shakes her head.

“Don’t,” she kisses him back, rapid-fire, half a dozen quick kisses that manage to light a path down his spine, making his entire body tingle. “Gods,  _ don’t _ -”

Poe nods. “Don’t need to tell me twice.” He’s back to kissing her deeply, the line of his body matching hers perfectly, and gods, she’s so - strong, but so soft, and she feels so good under his hands. They don’t move to progress anything past kissing, and Poe almost giggles at the knowledge that this is the first time he’s kissed someone in the last fourteen years, and had no intention of moving it towards sex. He’s making out, honestly, truly, like a teenager.

But it means more than that because this is Rey, he loves her, he wants her, but most of all he  _ loves  _ her, and now he knows what she sounds like when he runs his hands along her sides, when he kisses down her neck towards the hollow of her collarbone, what she tastes like when he dips his tongue just barely into that hollow, the way her fingers curl in her hair, the way she surges up on her toes as she tries to push her hips into him.

_ I love you  _ \- it almost slips out when he resurfaces to kiss her lips once more, but he hopes she can feel it in the way he holds her - and he’s holding her tightly, sure, but only because he thinks he’s the one who will fall apart if he doesn’t.

They startle apart, finally, when his comms ring -  _ incoming call from Yavin,  _ the droid reports - and Poe doesn’t move his hands from Rey. Instead, they look at each other, for a long, unbroken moment, and Poe knows his face is flushed the same way hers is, he can feel himself panting, matching Rey breath for breath, and the phone’s ringing, but all he can think about is how much he wants to kiss her again.

“Um.” Rey blinks, her eyes not getting any clearer.

Poe tries to even his breathing, and fails. He rests his forehead against hers. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE BACK! I hope to update this a lot more frequently now that Damerey December is over, and this is my major, solo WIP!
> 
> WOohoo! I hope people are still interested in this despite the massive gap in updates!!! I'll try even harder now! Sorry!!!!


	9. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe handles the aftermath of his stolen moment with his Jedi bodyguard; a disturbing dream leads him to grow wary of the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:
> 
> Disturbing dreams, as always.

The comm keeps ringing, and Poe feels like he jumped out his window up here on the 48th floor, and Rey isn’t looking away from his face. His trembling fingers move of their own will to trace her bottom lip, slightly swollen from his kisses, and he can feel her breath catch under his fingertips.

“Rey,” he whispers, leaning down again, gathering her up in his arms once more.

_ <Incoming call from Yavin> _ chimes the mulish reminder, and Poe’s breath staggers, unable to ignore a call from his home planet any longer, and it’s physically difficult to pull himself away from her. “Will you wait?” He studies her face while walking backwards to the comms.

“Wherever you are,” Rey reminds him, “I will be,” and she’s still breathless, but with a bit of snark in her tone, an eyebrow quirked to remind him that she actually  _ does  _ have to keep eyes on him, but kriff if her statement doesn’t hit him like a punch to the gut.

He nods, throat working nervously, as he reaches for the comms to accept the call.

“Mijo?” Kes Dameron appears, tiny and crackling, on his desk.

It’s like cold water down his spine - he’s reminded of the time his pa caught him necking a pretty Twi’lek in a speeder back on Yavin 4, and he doesn’t know if he wants to grin or cry. “Papa? Is something wrong?”

“I was calling to congratulate you, bicho.” His father looks and sounds undeniably amused, and the guilt has nowhere to go, thrashing against the sides of his gut miserably. “On your vote?”

_ Right, the galaxy-changing bill he just got through.  _ “Yeah.” Poe wipes a hand over his face, burning to his ears. “Thanks, papa.”

“Your mother would be so proud.” Kes looks sad now, impossibly sad, and Poe’s haunted by the dream from the other night, where his mother held his hands and asked him to tell his father she loved him -  _ but how could he begin to explain that?  _ Poe flounders for a second, the grief heavy in the air, but then Rey bumps against one of the shelves near the window.

She squeaks in embarrassment, trying to right the vase that’s wobbling, and Poe fights back a laugh. 

“Is someone else there?”

“Yeah, papa, Rey’s here.” Poe grins at Rey, who turns bright red and waves her hand around as though to say  _ I’m not here! I’m not here!  _ while he gestures for her to come forward.

“Rey?” Kes brightens immediately. “The famous Jedi Rey who I’ve heard so much about?”

“The very same.” Poe turns to Rey and holds his hand out. “ _ Come here, _ ” he whispers, and Rey shuffles forward, her jaw set stubbornly. They stand in front of the projection of his father, who peers up at them curiously.

“Mijo! You didn’t say she was so” -  _ please, Maker, please stop him from saying  _ \- “Tall! And so strong! Fantastic!” 

Rey wiggles her fingers in an experimental wave, looking for all the galaxy like she wants to bury her face in Poe’s shoulder and hide forever. “Hello Mr. Dameron. I mean - Sargeant Dameron!”

“Kes is fine.” He waves a hand at her cheerfully, and Poe looks over at Rey with concern; he can feel his eyes soften when she looks back at him, and he prays how rumpled they both look doesn’t transmit over the comms.

Looking back at his father’s ornery expression, Poe has a feeling it very much does. “So, Rey - what do you think of my son?”

“Poe is-” Rey doesn’t get very far in whatever she was trying to say.

“And, would you look at that, I gotta go!” Poe checks his chrono obnoxiously. “Sorry, papa!”

“Fine, be like that. But I’ll see you both in nine days?” 

“Yes, papa, for the campaign. I’ll be there. Benduday, probably sometime in the afternoon?” Poe nudges Rey and smiles at her. “You’re coming along, right, Sunshine?”

_ Oh, kriff.  _ The slip-up definitely is noted by his father, but Rey rolls her eyes at him. “It’s my job, laserbrain.”

“Oh, I like her,” Kes laughs, and Rey grins back at him. Kes’s eyes squint a little as he regards Poe. “And I think we’ll have plenty to talk about mijo.”

“Yep.” There his voice goes, cracking again, like an adolescent nightmare. “See you soon, Papa. I love you.”

“Te amo.” The transmission cuts off with a hiss and crackle, and Poe rubs his neck, willing his blush to die down. When he turns to Rey to smile at her, she looks plenty nervous, which makes what he wants to do easier.

Poe holds his hands out to her, sitting on his desk at the same time, and Rey takes them, walking in until she brushes against him. 

“Now what?” She asks, barely above a whisper.

“Now - now we go to the luncheon that Leia’s throwing. I’ll shmooze a little, do the song and dance they want, and then we go to work like normal.”

“But everything’s not normal, everything is” - her small tongue traces her bottom lip nervously - “Different.”

“Is it?” Poe can’t stop playing with her hair, stroking his fingertips against the side of her face and then tucking strands behind her ear. “I mean, sure, one thing is changed, but you’re still Rey, and I’m still Poe, and-”

“And we’re still forbidden from…this,” Rey finishes, tears in her eyes, and Poe swears he can feel the conflict rising up in her like a wave.

“Not where I was going.” He catches her eye and smiles, squeezing her hands gently until she smiles back. “No - I meant to say - I’m still...I still care about you. And whether or not we ever do that again, or if we do it fifty thousand more times, I’ll care about you. A lot. So, nothing’s...changed, really.” He clears his throat and lowers his eyes, worried that he’s said too much, but instead of the cold sting of rejection, he feels Rey’s lips press against his curls, and he nods once, briefly, his lips curling into a smile even as tears of his own fill his eyes. 

“What if I can’t ever do - anything more than…” Her hands come up to frame his head, and she weaves her fingers through his curls. Poe looks up, careful not to displace the way she’s holding him, to smile at her softly.

“Anything will be enough,” he promises her, unblinkingly. “A kiss, a thousand kisses, nothing more than being at your side.” She looks doubtful, so he sits up straighter, leaning up to brush his nose across her cheekbone. “Hey.” Poe smiles at her, his fingers loosely curling around her forearm. “It’s like you said. Wherever you are, I will be. That’s all I want.”

“That’s not what I-” Rey cuts herself off with a huff, and shakes her head before a shy smile crosses her lips. She can’t meet his eyes, but he doesn’t force it. “Really?”

“Really.”

They don’t kiss again, the static heat of their previous moment passed, but she lets him hold her, and her arms wrap around him as well, and Poe thinks that this is all he’ll ever need.

***

_ “I heard you did something good today.” _

_ Poe looks up from the Force Tree; his dreams have brought him here again, and he looks over his shoulder at an approaching figure.  _

_ “Anton?” Poe blinks and then grins wildly. “Hey!” _

_ Anton Muran crosses the sweetgrass to sit next to Poe in the tangle of roots that rise up from the Force Tree, even now. It feels strange here - boundaries crossed and not crossed, and Poe can’t help himself, he just can’t, he looks at Muran’s hand where Iolo’s wedding band should be, and it’s not there, it’s not, at least not the gleam of an unfamiliar ring. _

His _ ring is there. _

_ Shara Bey’s ring, clearly resized to fit a man’s hand - and Muran had always been slender, but he is tall, his fingers long and delicate and beautiful to match the man - is on Muran. Poe stares and stares and stares. “Um.” _

_ “Don’t tell me you regret it.” Muran grins at him and looks up at the Tree. “Gods, I miss you. Miss this place.” _

_ “Where-” Poe blinks again, and the world shifts,  _ violently.  _ A different echo of memory reaches up to meet him, a different grief than merely breaking things off with his first love, with his first everything. A grief that comes from a much more permanent, much colder kind of loss.  _

_ Muran was his, here. Muran was Poe’s, and no one else’s, and they had loved each other - Poe had given him the ring, a memory taunts him, just out of reach, of sliding the ring into place in the shush-quiet space of an Academy bunk, a memory that is very much his, and yet isn’t, not in any way that counts - Muran loved Poe, and Poe loved Muran, and Muran had - had - _

_ “Oh.” Poe exhales, wiping his hand across his eyes for a moment, the grief surging up faster than a whirlwind of debris behind a starhopper taking flight. “ _ Oh. _ ” _

_ “It’s alright.” Muran stretches his abnormally long legs out - and how he’d gotten to be so tall was always anyone’s guess, when the rest of the pilots, Snap excluded, were typically scrawny little things - and knocks his foot against Poe’s. “Hey, starboy, it’s alright.” _

_ “M-” Poe’s breath catches on the first syllable, and his heart stutters from the grief. It’s not his grief, but it is, a feedback loop of surety and uncertainty. “I love you.” He said he always would, and Poe can at least give these words, even here, when his heart belongs to someone else, too. _

_ Muran takes his hand, the silver gleam still catching Poe’s attention, time and time again, an orbit between Muran’s handsome face, and the silver ring that he hadn’t seen again, not after the - _

_ No. That’s not his memory. Poe refuses to pull on the golden thread that extends from the Force tree and wraps around himself and the man at his side, and focuses on the way Muran’s hand feels in his own.  _

_ “You’ll need to be strong,” Muran says softly, so softly it might be a puff of air from his full lips. Poe flicks his eyes over to study him, and Muran smiles at him sadly. “For her. And for yourself.” _

_ “What are you talking about?” _

_ Muran vanishes then, and the feeling of his hand in Poe’s stays, stays until the screeching of a blaster rending against metal tears across the clearing. Without thinking, Poe leaps to his feet, his hand outstretched behind him, as though he could protect the Force Tree, remembering all too well the agony on his dad’s face when he’d accidentally injured it as a boy. _

_ He stumbles forward, seeing two figures grappling in the distance - he squints through the sudden fog, almost smoke, that fills the meadow, and his breath stutters when he sees it. The flash of lightsabers. Blue. Red. _

_ The word leaves him without effort, sounding more like a prayer. “Rey.”  _

_ He’s off like a shot across the clearing, running faster than should be possible with the ground tilting underneath him so viciously. Poe feels the safety and comfort of Yavin melting away at a brutal pace, as he rushes headlong into another dream that bordered so abruptly on his peaceful if heartbreaking vision, invading his home - this is not his dream. He knows this. _

_ Rey looks more ferocious than he’s ever seen her, weaving an intricate, deadly pattern with her blue lightsaber. She holds it in front of her, teeth gritted, face red, and when the other figure, cloaked in black, leans forward to hiss something at her, Rey screams, a feral, wild sound that cuts Poe to the quick. _

“You weren’t strong enough,”  _ the figure hisses, wielding two red blades, moving swiftly, obviously on the offense.  _ “You failed, little Jedi.”

_ Rey screams again, this time in denial, and surges forward, her blade moving almost too quickly to follow as she beats her opponent back. The voice sounds - terrible. Oily. Snake-like. Pleased. _

“You could have saved them.”  _ The sabers meet for a long moment, Rey blocking both blades with her one, and she grunts in agony before reaching out behind her - another weapon soars into sight, slapping into her palm, and Rey ignites it.  _

_ Another lightsaber hums to life, this one bright gold, and Rey sweeps it viciously towards the opponent. The cloaked figure moves back, not startled so much as interested, and it cackles wildly.  _

“Good girl. Not as easy as the others, then.”  _ Rey shakes her head and strikes back, first with the blue, then the gold.  _ “Join me, and I’ll make you the stronger than any who has come before.”

“No.”  _ Rey shakes her head, refusing to relent, even though cuts and burns litter her arms - Poe can see a vicious slash along her side, and he reaches to his side for a blaster that isn’t there. As before, his feet are frozen, as the dream has decided he’s stumbled far enough.  _ “No, you’re wrong.”

“You’ll see in time, little one.”  _ The figure seems to pout for a second, and it couldn’t be clearer that Rey’s being toyed with, something confirmed by the flicker of rage in Rey’s face. She screams again, in fury, and lashes out, a blur of light and death, beating the figure back.  _ “Oh, look at you - definitely fun, then.”

“Stop it!”  _ Rey whirls, leaping in the air over the cloaked figure, and Poe catches a glimpse of pale, white flesh before they’re locked in combat again. “ _ You’re wrong.”  _ Rey comes out victorious, somehow, one lightsaber at the figure’s midriff, the other at its neck.  _ “I am strong enough.”

“Are you?”  _ The figure’s right hand lifts slowly, and Poe feels dread building in his stomach because the hand isn’t lifting to strike against Rey; it’s pointing to something on the ground. The wicked red does not waver as it gestures towards a crumpled form Poe hadn’t noticed before. Judging by the wail of grief from Rey, she hadn’t either.  _ “Look for yourself.”

_ Poe’s feet can move now, and he rushes to Rey’s side, as it looks like she’s bound to collapse.  _ “You can strike me down, little one, but you still won’t be strong enough to save him.”

_ Poe’s eyes are glassy, empty, as he stares at the blood-stained sky, his face twisted in agony, blood trickling from his mouth. He can hear Rey screaming in denial, sobbing his name, but the ground tilts viciously once more, and Poe stumbles and trips. When he opens his eyes again, he can see Rey standing over him - with a curdling fear, he realizes that he’s in the corpse of himself, watching Rey weep for him.  _

_ “Don’t!” He wants to beg her as her hand lowers, the lightsaber flickering as it shuts off. “Keep fighting!” But he’s dead now, isn’t he? Lost to Rey forever -  _

_ Rey sees the blade coming as it rushes towards her, but she makes no move to stop it.  _

Poe wakes up screaming Rey’s name, and he doesn’t hesitate before tumbling out of bed and sprinting for her door. His apartment is eerily silent, and though he’s anticipating another maelstrom when he opens Rey’s door, all he sees is Rey, twisted in her blankets, a sheen of sweat covering her face as she whimpers. Her eyes are open - she’s awake, but he isn’t sure how aware she is.

“Rey?” Poe rushes forward, hands extended. “It was just a dream!”

“Poe?” Rey sits up slightly when he sits on her mattress, and he grabs her hands, smoothing his thumb over her knuckles. “How did you-”

“I saw,” Poe confesses with a wince. “I saw the dream, sweetheart. It wasn’t real.”

“How did -” Rey blinks a few times, and he watches her pull herself from the terror of her nightmare. “Did-” 

“It wasn’t real.” Poe shifts so he’s kneeling on the bed, to better smooth his hands along her face. “Listen to me, Sunshine, whatever that was - it wasn’t real.”

“It was a warning.” Rey shifts so her knees are tucked underneath her as well. “A warning that…” She trails off, and Poe’s still feeling queasy from the vision of his own death, but he shakes his head quickly.

“No, it was just a dream.”  _ Liar.  _ “Just a dream, sweetheart.”

“The Force is trying to tell me something.” Rey’s about to cry, and Poe knows that if she does, he won’t be far behind. “Something about -”

“What if it wasn’t the Force?” The figure from the dream - Poe had never seen his or her face, but there was something more...sinister than a nightmare, there. “What if it’s something else?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why would I see it without the Force wanting me to? Besides, there’s so much about the Force I don’t understand.” Rey lifts a shaking hand to her mouth, wipes it. Her eyes are distant and flinty in a way he isn’t used to - distant, sure, he’s seen that as a result of her Jedi training, but the hard coldness, not so much. “Maybe...maybe Master Luke is wrong. Maybe there...there’s something to both sides of the Force. Something...to make me stronger.”

_ You’ll see in time, little one,  _ the oily voice from the dream whispers, and Poe nearly falls out of the bed rushing to clasp Rey’s hands.

“No!” It comes out much louder than he intended, and Rey winces, flinching back from him, so Poe quiets immediately. “Shit, sorry! No, no, no - sweetheart look at me.”

Her hazel eyes are dimmed when she does, and Poe strokes her hair out of her face, his fingertips as delicate and soothing as possible against her temple before he places his palm on the side of her face. “Hey,” he soothes, his lips brushing her forehead with a whisper of a kiss. “Hey, hey, listen to me, okay?” He pulls back to check to see if she’s returned more to herself, and her eyes aren’t as hard as before. “You are the strongest person I know, hands down.”

Rey opens her mouth to argue, but Poe strokes his thumb over her prominent cheekbone, a prettier angle than he’s ever seen, and she softens immediately, eyes sad and much older than her handful of decades. He gets lost in the feel of her skin under his thumb, but only for a second, and not enough to really distract him. “You are. And - and I know it’s tempting, to turn to anger, and rage, when you feel like the good fight isn’t enough.” He’s lost enough times on the floor of the Senate, lost when it really mattered, when lives were on the line -  and then there were the friends, young and foolish and stupid, just like him, who hadn’t come back from training missions and special ops. 

He leans in more, their knees knocking together as they kneel on her bed, and he doesn’t blink, doesn’t waver, and Rey’s hands come up to clasp his wrists, and he gets a strange feeling, like he’s pulling someone up from deep water, like he’s stopping her from drowning.  _ You save me, I save you,  _ he thinks desperately.  _ Partners.  _ His ring  _ burns  _ against his skin. 

“I know.” His voice cracks on those two, simple, loaded words. “My mother and father” - Poe licks his lip desperately, trying to salvage some composure for this, trying to gather the words into a semblance of logic and sense - “they sacrificed everything for the cause. Their friends died. They watched their family die, they watched good people die, children, brothers, sisters, parents. They put me in the hands of my grandfather, prayed to the Force that he’d be able to protect me, and didn’t really get to know me until I was old enough to talk in complete sentences.” Poe huffs a laugh, looking away briefly if only to blink the tears out of his eyes. “My first word wasn’t mama or dada. It was  _ hide. _ ”

Truthfully, it was  _ e’con’e,  _ a child’s babble of  _ esconde,  _ but the message is the same. Rey’s waiting for him to finish his thoughts, so Poe pulls up sharply on the nose dive he’s taking into bittersweet - heavy on bitter - nostalgia and gets to the point.

“They all made that sacrifice because they had conviction in what they were doing. They were fighting against what the Dark could do.” Poe’s hand is soft on Rey’s face before he smooths it down, a brush against her sleep-warmed neck, to her collarbone, which he traces slowly with his thumb. “Vader killed millions, Rey. There’s no… in between with the Dark. It promises you things, but asks you for monstrosities in return.”  _ There must be balance,  _ a faint whisper calls to him, reaching out from his childhood, and he sees, not for the first time, a flash of golden branches before his eyes. Poe shakes himself to finish his thought. “Torture, murder, genocide - that’s not strength. That’s cruelty.”

“I know, I just” - Her tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip, and Poe’s concern actually weighs heavier than desire in this moment, and he chooses to ignore the motion, chooses instead to focus on the way Rey’s voice hitches into something higher, something anguished - “I - I’m not strong enough. I know you say that I am, but - but if someone I loved died because of me-”

“Then that will be the Force’s will,” Poe reminds her softly, his gut telling him to say this. Rey doesn’t look like she agrees with him, but Poe shakes his head. “You can’t control everything that happens around you, Rey. No one can. Vader lost  _ everything.  _ His wife, his children, and eventually he died, just to try and make up for a millionth of what he’d done. And from what I’ve heard, he didn’t start out evil at all; the opposite. Vader was a desperate man once, a  _ good  _ man who loved his wife and feared for her, and who sacrificed pieces of himself to the Dark until there was nothing left. That won’t happen to you. Not because of” -  _ me,  _ he doesn’t say because he’s not that selfish, he knows there are other people Rey loves - “Fear. Not because you’re afraid. Just - just talk to me, instead. Okay? I know it might not be great to talk to Luke or even Ben about this, but until you’re ready to do that, I’m here. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re not?” Rey’s chin trembles, her shoulders sagging as she looks up at him with a hope he doesn’t want to know the cost of. He places his hands on her arms and squeezes gently, just enough to transfer some of what he’s feeling.

“Never.” Poe smiles at her sadly, willing her to believe him. “Wild rancors couldn’t drag me away. You can tell me anything, say anything - I’ll still be here. Just don’t shut yourself off to the Light. Don’t try to carry the galaxy on your shoulders by yourself.”

Rey doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and he fears that he’s shown his hand too quickly, revealed how badly he loves her in a few sentences that are far more inclined to the definition of  _ ramble  _ than his famous speeches on the Senate floor have ever been, but then it’s like a dam cracks, and Rey’s Jedi composure fades away, leaving behind a scared, grey-faced young woman. 

“I’m so tired.” The words mumble out slowly, a weight almost unnatural attached to them. 

“Then sleep.” Poe tilts his head towards the still-rumpled bedsheets. “I’ll stay.”

“I can’t sleep.” Rey starts to tremble, in a hurtling-towards-something-terrible kind of way. “I c-can’t. I can’t dream about it again, not, not again, please -”

“I’ll be here,” Poe promises, scooting back to the head of the bed and holding his arms out to her. “I’ll stay awake. I’ll watch over you. Please sleep?”

The only person in the galaxy he’s ever met who could match him for arguing - other than Leia Organa, maybe - wilts slightly and nods, lying down on her side and wriggling up his torso until her head rests on his chest. “Just for a little bit,” she mutters into his shirt, and Poe hums in agreement, his fingers already carding through tousled waves. 

“A little bit,” Poe says, already intending to let her sleep until his vote in two days. He’ll hold her the whole time, he doesn’t care.

He thinks she falls asleep immediately, she goes so still, her breathing still even, but he should have known better than to try to estimate a Jedi - she breathes out a quiet something a few minutes later, and Poe has to blink and ask her to repeat herself. 

“I said - thank you,” a slender hand pets across Poe’s chest, and gods he’s so karked. “...Senator.”

“You’re welcome.” Poe curls up to plant a kiss in her hair, and Rey hums so sweetly that he thinks all of this - any scandal that might come, any censure from Skywalker - will have been worth it. 

Rey sleeps then, he has no doubt, and he watches the light change on the opposite wall throughout the night, not even a little tempted to fall asleep in the face of the promise he made to Rey.

After dawn, Rey does wake up, stretching like a loth-Cat and scolding him for not waking her sooner. But, she smiles, and kisses him, morning breath and all, and traipses to the refresher to shower and greet the day; Poe indulges in watching her long, powerful legs for a few seconds longer than he should have, but when she looks over her shoulder at the door, her lip between her teeth, he knows he’s been caught, and he knows she’s pleased. Poe feels fifteen years old as he blows her a kiss, and Rey giggles, her nose scrunching up as her cheeks turn pink, before she ducks her head and disappears into the ‘fresher.

With the sound of water hitting the floor in the adjoining room, Poe smiles to himself and sinks down below the blankets, unable to contain the happy, pleased little groan he makes as he snuggles down against the mattress and lets himself drift off, finally.

He regrets it soon enough.

_ <Boy.> _

_ Fire rages behind his eyes, suffocating him with its weight.  _

_ <Oh, little boy - you doubt what the Dark can do?> _

“No,”  _ Poe mumbles, trying to wake himself up. Flinty, ice-blue eyes glare out from the darkness. _

_ <You speak so wisely of anger, of loss - but maybe you don’t remember what it is to feel those things.> _

_ Terror and guilt and fear seize him, threatening to drown him in leagues of pitch-black nothingness. _

_ <Maybe you need a reminder of what it is to lose.> _

The dream releases Poe viciously, and he coughs, spluttering awake - the water’s still running in the ‘fresher -  _ how long was I asleep?  _

He rubs at his eyes, the grit there and the looming sense of dread in his stomach the only reminder of what he just saw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's that? Another S&J update this soon? Almost like my fury at some of the nonsense in our tag drove me to type faster! Ah!
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you're still enjoying this!! I have lots planned for our pair. I'd love to hear some of your theories ;)
> 
> Chapter 10 should be up soon - expect a conversation with Leia, more stolen moments between the Senator and the Jedi - as well as some devastating news.


	10. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After some tension reveals itself in the Select Senate, Poe takes Rey on a date.
> 
>  
> 
> But, trouble isn't too far away for the senator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meeeeeeeeeeep.
> 
>  
> 
> Sad times ahead!

Poe pinches the bridge of nose, not even bothering to hide his contempt as the debate rages on around him. He doesn’t see how this can even  _ be  _ a debate. 

They passed the damn bill to fund the push to eradicate the remnants of the slave trade in all recognized systems last week, after all - who in the right kriffing mind wakes up in the morning and thinks  _ huh, better protect slave traders and actual monsters _ ?

Re’tha of Coruscant, for one.

Poe physically hates the other senator at this point, a sentiment largely shared by Leia and Rey alike. And if two of the smartest people he knows hate a guy, he feels pretty damn justified in sharing the feeling. 

Speaking of Leia - the First Senator rises, looking tired, and calls for a recess. Poe nods in understanding; it’s been six hours of this, after all. They’ll resume on Primeday, as the Senate rarely convened on Benduday.

In the meantime, he’ll go to his office or home and pout for an hour, give himself time to grumble under his breath, maybe knock the shavit out of his punching bag, and then go over his notes and drag together pieces of a speech that might inspire some of the waffling senators to refuse clemency to slave traders who accept Re’tha’s deal (that is, to surrender their ‘possessions’ - aka living, sentient beings - to the New Republic in exchange for forgiveness for their crimes), because at the end of the day, a transferred contract means nothing at all.

He seethes as he gathers his things: maybe he’s just still on edge from what Rey confessed to him about why she felt so indebted to the Jedi Order, but if the Republic gains the ‘contracts’ of people currently enslaved - and Re’tha suggested that they merely give them wages, pennies really, for the jobs they were already working - there’s barely any improvement for those people.

So yeah, he’s on edge, and he knocks his chair back in his irritation when he stands to leave - he feels slightly calmer at the sight of Rey, waiting for him by the doors. Her hair is down today, clipped back from her face, and she’s wearing a soft, pretty scarf he found in the market the other day (and he pretends that doesn’t hit him like a punch to the gut). She smiles at him, and he remembers that when he gets them out of here, they’re free to do whatever they want, maybe kiss a little, maybe Poe can hold her a little, and he’s debating just sprinting out of here - but he’s stopped by a voice behind him.

“Where can I get one?” The Corellian select senator has his feet popped up on the seat in front of him when Poe turns, and he squints at the guy, not understanding.

“Huh?” 

“You know,” the senator - Weslink - smirks at Poe, and it feels like oil curling down Poe’s spine, slippery and cold. “Maybe I should hire someone to shoot at me. Maybe then I can get a hot piece of ass to ‘watch’ my back.”

The wink is what really does it.

Poe doesn’t think twice, just lurches forward and grabs the senator by the front of the robes; he nearly falls off his chair with a yelp, cowering at the fist Poe has raised. It’s the most rash, impulsive thing he’s done since he was a teenager (the Academy had done a fairly good job smoothing out his rougher edges), but red is swarming the corner of his vision, and there’s nothing more in the galaxy he wants to do other than physically wipe that smirk of Weslink’s face, permanently.

_ Poe!  _ He can sense Rey’s distress from across the floor, and that’s what makes him pause. It’s like she spoke in his ear, and something warm trails along his forearm, like a soft hand is trying to pull him back. 

“Senator Dameron, please unhand Senator Weslink.” Leia’s there, and Poe releases the other man immediately, folding his hands behind his back with a military posture; he works extremely hard to control his expression into neutrality, and the other senator coughs and scowls up at him.

“Aren’t you going to order an official reprimand, Madam Senator?” Weslink sneers.

“That’s a good idea.” Leia rests a small hand on Poe’s arm and smiles at the other senator. “How noble of you to not only accept, but also suggest a reprimand for yourself, Weslink.”

“That’s not what I-”

“Have a good day.” She escorts Poe out of the room with the lightest of touches that still seems to feel like durasteel. They pass Rey on the way, and she looks worriedly at Poe, her large eyes swimming with anxiety, and Poe offers her a reassuring smile before she falls into step behind him and Leia. They walk towards the Office of the First Senator, and when they enter the chambers, Leia gestures at the seating area. “Be a dear and wait for us, Rey?”

“Yes ma’am.” Rey settles into a chair, and Poe feels more anxious than before. This reminds him of the time he’d stolen his mother’s A-Wing on Yavin and the head nun in the village had dragged him to his father by his ear. 

Kes had understood of course, but he’d also been disappointed. It was twenty years ago, and Poe can still feel that keen sting of letting his father down. 

Yeah, this feels pretty similar.

“Sit,” Leia barks at him when they enter the inner chamber. Poe sits immediately in the straight-backed chair facing her desk. Leia stands behind her desk for a long moment, her gaze scrutinizing, unflinching. He folds his hands in front of him and waits for her judgment. More than once, her gaze flickers to her closed door, behind which Rey sits in the waiting room.

With a sigh long enough to last the Kessel Run, Leia sits in her own chair and folds her hands.  _ You’re fired. You made a big mistake, pal. This is the end of the line. What the kriff were you thinking? She’s a Jedi, laserbrain!  _ Leia could say  _ anything  _ to him, and he wouldn’t be surprised. She sees right through them, of course she does, and -

“She loves green things.”

“What?” Poe knows his mouth is hanging open, but he can’t control his shock. 

“For about six years, my son was always asking me to send him flowers from the various planets I visited. Something about how his Padawan loved green things. I believe it was how he first got her to start talking - he took her to the botanical gardens near the temple.”

“Oh, uh, that’s” - Poe clears his throat, well aware that sweat is beading his forehead - “Nice to know?”

Leia stares at him again before shaking her head. “Buy Rey some flowers, Poe. Maybe take her to dinner. Just because your … whatever you’re doing is a secret doesn’t mean you should make her feel like you’re ashamed of her.”

“She feels like I’m ashamed of her? No, you don’t understand, I lo-” Poe stops himself, eyes wide. Leia smirks at what amounts to his full confession of his mildly illicit affair with the Jedi waiting for them outside. 

“Interesting.”

Poe blushes and looks at his lap, his bottom lip finding its way between his teeth before he speaks again. “Do you really think she’s worried that I’m-”

“Of course not. Not yet, at least. But these secrets take their toll. Before the secret gets out, make sure she knows that she’s special to you. Buy her flowers. Take her to dinner. Tell her she looks pretty now and then.”

“I tell her that every day,” Poe mumbles, almost wishing Leia had yelled at him instead.

“Good. Now go.”

“Thank you.” Poe stands quickly, but then frowns. “Leia, what are we going to do about Re’tha? We can’t just...let those people be indentured to the New Republic. That’s just a different kind of bondage.”

“I know.” Leia sighs heavily this time and shakes her head wearily. “I trust the Force, and it’s telling me a big change is about to happen. Something will come of this - something uncertain.”

“I don’t like uncertain.”

“Who does?” Leia flips her holopad open and gestures to the door. “Go. Flowers. Dinner. Compliments.”

“Yes ma’am.” Poe exits the room quickly but looks over his shoulder at the last second - he tells himself that it’s just the light that makes Leia’s face look so lined.

***

Dinner and flowers end up being an unmitigated success, and Poe wonders if it would be inappropriate to send Leia a thank you note - but he loses his train of thought as Rey bites his earlobe in the back of his speeder.

They’re parked illegally in the woods, near the spot they had their picnic all those weeks ago, and Poe can’t catch his breath as Rey hovers over him, her thin, strong hands framing his face as she kisses him again and again, making him dizzy. 

“Did you like the flowers?” He asks, voice raspy from lust and a whole lot of other things he isn’t sure he should voice just yet. Her teeth sink briefly into his lower lip, and he moans, grasping her elbows before wrapping his arms around her back and hauling her closer.

“Loved them,” she whispers, wiggling happily in his arms, and Poe tries very hard to remember page eight of the maintenance manual for BB units as her curious fingers slip inside his jacket and trace over his chest. Then, she rocks against him with what has to be more than innocent naivete, especially judging by the ornery look in her eyes, and Poe groans again, surging up to kiss her. She tastes like the Nabooian delicacies they shared at dinner, and a little bit like chocolate, but mostly like Rey, and it’s better than anything he’s ever tasted. 

Something creeps up on the back of his awareness, strangely, like a passing shadow, and Poe shivers. Rey freezes and pulls away from him. “What?” 

“Nothing.” Poe shakes his head and looks around them for a second. “Just thought I - it’s nothing.”

“Paranoid?” Rey teases, ducking back down to nip along his jaw. 

“Been a while since I went necking in a speeder,” he jokes, and Rey giggles. 

“Necking? Is that what you call it?” She looks adorably confused by the word, so Poe grins, grips her waist firmly, and flips them so her back is on the seat. He pauses for a second, stroking hair out of her face as he kneels above her, and Rey smiles at him, slipping a kiss against his wrist.

“Necking,” he repeats with a nod. “Observe.”

He ducks down and kisses her neck, from the corner of her jaw to her collarbone, his fingers light on her arm, stroking up and down. Rey gasps and squeaks in a highly gratifying way, and he kisses just hard enough to leave a small mark above her collarbone. 

She seems to like that best, and when he apologizes sheepishly, Rey grins sharply, an almost feral light in her eyes, before using her strong legs to flip them - she returns the favor, and it’s Poe’s turn to gasp, his eyes staring out to the sky, where billions of stars blink down at them, the only witness to Rey taking him apart piece by piece with very little effort.

He closes his eyes for a second when she reaches a spot behind his ear, and that’s when he feels it, again -  a cold shadow, somewhere out there, somewhere far away, but also right  _ here  _ -

The warmth of Rey’s mouth chases it away again, and he holds her more tightly to him, cupping her jaw to pull her in for another kiss.

It’s just his imagination.

Right now, Rey’s the only real thing in the entire goddamn galaxy.

***

“You’re going to be late, Senator!” Rey calls from the next room, and Poe grumbles while straightening his robes. 

“We don’t have to leave for another hour, Jedi!” He calls back, and he can feel Rey’s eye roll from here. Poe grins to himself before settling into his chair. The date with Rey yesterday had done a lot to soothe his nerves (the anxiety from whatever that shadow was still lingering unpleasantly), and he’s pretty confident that he can bury Re’tha and his cronies today. 

“Knowing you, you’ll need two hours to get ready.” 

“I’m already ready!” Poe counters, and Rey walks into the office, her brown and drab tunic doing very little to hide how beautiful she is. So, he tells her. “Gods, you’re beautiful.”

“Oh, hush.” Rey bites her lip, and to Poe’s delight, the tops of her cheeks turn pink. “You’re just saying that because you want something.”

“What could I possibly want? I have everything I want.”

“Is that so?” Rey traipses into the room, towards his desk, and Poe pushes out on his chair while smiling at her. 

“That’s so.” 

Rey climbs into his lap like they’ve done this before, like this level of domesticity is normal, and Poe’s overwhelmed for a solid second by the weight of her against him. 

“Now you know why I got ready so early.” Poe tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear with a swallow, leaving his palm against her cheek. “So I could spend more time with you.”

“Pull the other one, Senator.” Rey rubs her nose against his despite her teasing, and he doesn’t think he imagines how  _ pleased  _ she feels.

“I mean it.” He curls a hand around each of her calves, appreciating how her current posture (he can’t thinking of a better word than  _ straddling _ ) brings her so close to him. “Best way to start my day.”

“Mhm.” Rey kisses him with a hum, which is what he wanted, and they spend a few drowsy moments enjoying each other. Sure, the situation isn’t perfect - Poe wants to scream from the rooftop of his building that he’s in love (but he should probably mention it to  _ her _ , first), and that would either get him killed, or her disgraced, but either way it ends with Rey upset, which is something he won’t allow - but if this is what they can have, then he’ll take it. This is more than enough, more than he ever thought he could have.

Rey seems more than happy with this, as well - she’s so tactile, and not for the first time, Poe feels a flash of irritation for how the Jedi scooped her off of Jakku and condemned her to a life of emotional and physical separation from others. It’s a promise he reminds himself of daily, at this point - he’ll spend the rest of his life making sure she knows what it feels like to be truly loved. So, no matter how much he wants her - wants her physically, wants her near him always, wants her as his wife (and that was a thought he’d had a few days ago, and he can’t even pretend that it scares him) - he’ll be whatever she needs him to be. Always.

Right as Rey’s tongue tentatively curls into his mouth, drawing a groan from his throat, the comms set on his desk rings shrilly. 

Rey moves to pull away, but Poe shakes his head, eyes still closed, and he tilts his head up for another kiss. “Let it ring.” She seems to accept that, and her lips press against his again.

The comms keep ringing.

_ Incoming call from unknown,  _ it announces coolly. Poe frowns, but doesn’t pull away from Rey.

The communicator clipped to her belt chirps three times.

“That’s the temple,” she says softly, pulling away again. Poe lets her this time, if only because of the worry in her voice. “I need to take this.”

“Yeah, of course.” He gets one more kiss from her for his troubles, which makes him smile. “I’ll take mine.” He nods his head towards his comms, which have started ringing again.  _ Incoming call from unknown.  _

Rey waves at him over her shoulder before the doors hiss shut behind her, and Poe accepts the call.

He squints at the figure that appears, shimmering, on his desk.

“Snap?” Poe slaps the table with an open hand, grinning wildly. “Snap Wexley, you son of a bantha! How’s it going?”

“Poe.” It just takes one word, and the brief excitement Poe felt inverts into terror. Even through the holo, Snap looks pale and drawn, his flightsuit torn, the edges of the tears almost...singed. “Are you - is this a secure line?”

“It is.” Poe looks at the door, and then back at the holo, his heart jammed in his throat. “What’s - what’s wrong, buddy?”

“You know I wouldn’t call you unless...unless it was important.” Snap’s face crumples, and he sobs, openly, and Poe can’t see for the panic in his eyes, each heartbeat sending black spiraling across his vision. He wipes his nose messily, his shoulders heaving, and Poe’s hands tighten into fists. 

“What happened?” Snap still can’t compose himself, and Poe grits his teeth against the anxiety. “Could you - do you need to write it down?”

“Can’t.” Snap laughs, but it’s not amused. “Can’t - this can’t be recorded officially, apparently. Our debrief was unaccepted by the Navy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Eight standard hours ago, Rapier Squadron was called to an Outer Rim post. Abandoned spacecraft, escape pods all jettisoned. Pirate attack. Or so we were told.” Snap stands a little straighter, his tone lapsing into something professional, a little distanced. Poe understands - he’s delivered bad news in his time, as well.

“When we got there, the escape pods” - Snap takes a steadying breath - “Someone else released them. The whole crew was still onboard. Dead. Every last one.”

“Why would pirates do that?” Poe’s anxiety is threatening to boil out from him at this point. He squints at the holo, a thought occurring to him. “Gods - is - is Kare okay?”

_ Snap and Kare, standing at his wedding, married and happy and whole -  _

That’s not his memory. Kriff.

“Kare?” This stops Snap for a second. “Did you know we’re together? Half the unit still doesn’t know.”

“Uhm.” Poe shakes himself, the strange languor from his dreams threatening to steal him away from this moment. “Nothing, just - just a hunch. From when we were all together.”

“Ah.” Snap nods, seeming to accept this, if only because grief steals across his features once more. “No. Kare is...fine. We found what killed the crew members. Wasn’t pirates.” Snap pauses for a long time, and Poe wonders if the comms are frozen. “It was someone with a lightsaber.”

“What?” Poe’s hand spasms on his leg. “A Jedi?”

“No. At least, none of Luke’s Jedi. This was something else. Something...it was like Vader all over again.”

“Kriff.”

“They approached us- knew who we were. Knew all our names. She-”

“She?” 

“Yeah. She. She - she knew your name, Poe. She asked where you were.”

“What? I haven’t been assigned to your squad in a decade.”

“It doesn’t matter. Said she had a gift for you.”

_ Maybe you need to be reminded,  _ a sinister memory hisses. 

“What happened?” Poe demands, sounding angrier than he means. Snap blinks blearily and looks at him. He looks older than Poe remembers, older than should be possible.

“She tried to attack us, block our way to the ships. But...kriff, Poe, I’m - I don’t know how to say this.”

“Just say it, then.”

“Muran.” One word, and Poe’s heart stops, even as Snap continues. “He grabbed some sort of wreckage and fended her off - high melting point on deep space equipment - screamed at us to go. We didn’t want to, but...it was the only way. She - even before we started running, she’d…”

“No.” Poe stands, and his chair tips backwards and slams into the ground. He doesn’t notice. “No, no, no-”

“I’m sorry, Poe, I know what he meant to-”

“Tell me. Tell me, Commander.”

Snap sounds sympathetic now, and Poe can’t have that. “He’s dead, Poe. She killed him.”

Something cold clicks into place inside of him, and it’s made worse a second later.

“The last thing she said before we got to our ships - she was standing over him, and he was still trying to fight her off - she said... _ you’ll do nicely. _ ”

Poe nods, still feeling like he’s been plunged into cave waters on Hoth. “Thank you for informing me, Commander.”

“Poe, listen, I told you because the First Senator needs to know, and I couldn’t get ahold of her private line. The Navy sent us there. They said it was pirates, they  _ lied,  _ they refused our record of it-”

“I’ll pass the information along to Leia.” Poe straightens his robes and nods again. “Thank you, Snap. Really. That must have been - I can’t imagine how difficult that was.” A thought occurs to him through his stupor - “Iolo. Does he-”

“He’s a wreck.” Snap rubs his neck. “Will you come to the funeral?”

“Of course I will.” Even through whatever this is settling down around him, this cold and eerie calm, Poe feels a surge of indignation that Snap would doubt him. “Tell me when. I’ll be there.” 

“Let Leia know. May the Force be with you, Poe.”

“Yeah, yeah. You too.” Still feeling distant, Poe doesn’t even blink when the call ends. 

“Okay.” Poe mumbles to himself, staring at his door. “Okay, okay.” 

A second later, he grips his desk and sobs, nearly retching from the grief that surges up inside him, tangling inside him, pulling him down, down, down - he slams into the desk, still holding it like a lifeline, sobbing brokenly. 

_ Muran -  _

_ No, no, no, no, no - _

He doesn’t hear his doors hiss open, or the pounding of feet across his floor, but Rey’s holding him suddenly, pulling him up and out of the darkness swallowing him, a vivid point of light, and she wraps her arms around him. “Oh, Poe.”

“He’s dead.” They end up on the floor, Rey holding him, his chair still upended. He sobs, nearly screaming on the exhale as he clutches her arm around his chest. “He’s - he’s-”

“I know.” Rey kisses his temple and scratches her blunt fingernails along his scalp. “I know, my love, I know.”

Rey keeps whispering things against his hairline, where her lips are pressed, but Poe can only hear one thing, a hiss in the dark that will haunt him to the grave - 

_ Maybe you need a reminder of what it is to lose. _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the gap in updates - if you follow me on tumblr, you know that this hasn't been the best time! sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry.
> 
>  
> 
> i hope you're still enjoying this story! thanks for sticking with it.


	11. Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe heads to Kesh with his Jedi bodyguard; then, they continue on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for:
> 
> Lots of grief/grieving/mourning/funeral
> 
> Discussions of sex/comfort sex
> 
> Ill-advised comfort techniques

* * *

  _I should have been there._

It’s all Poe can think of as he stands awkwardly in an unfamiliar room. His hands fidget with his robe for a second before he drags his fingers through his curls, leaving them tangled their against the roots, tugging against his scalp, trying to remember that this is real. _This is real._

“Careful, Senator.” Thin fingers grip his wrist and tug it away, and Poe relaxes, if only slightly. Rey smiles at him softly, still sad around the eyes, the way she has been since the call - “Hey.” She runs her hand through his hair, straightening it back into style, before she drops her hand to his chest. “Are you alright?” She doesn’t need to say the - _can you do this_? Poe can hear it.

He takes her hand where it’s smoothing out the front of his robes and kisses her knuckles briefly. Poe nods without looking up. “Yeah.” His voice comes out rough and scratchy, and answers both her spoken and unspoken question.

“We need to go, Senator. It will start soon.” Still kind, still patient, Rey looks up at him with her typical blend of strength and fragility. He knows what put the fragility there - hates himself for it, hates that he’s not more ready to help her combat - and he summons the little strength of his own that he can.

“Thanks for being here, Jedi.” He trails his fingertips down her cheek, ending at her chin.

“Wherever you are,” Rey doesn’t hesitate before answering. “I will be.”

He nods, throat constricting without warning (not that unusual the last few days), and to avoid any concern over the tears in his eyes, he leans in slowly and captures her lips with his own. It’s not the first time they’ve kissed since the call - _he remembers how badly he failed a few days ago, when he accidentally_ \- but he tries to put more of himself into it than he did the last time, tries to be present (even if he doesn’t technically want to be _here_ , he at least wants to be with _her_ ) for it, and Rey sighs softly, threading her fingers through his curls, undoubtedly knocking them awry again.

When they break apart, Poe wraps his arms around her slender frame and tugs her close, bowing his head to bury in her shoulder. More than ever, he can feel the Force thrumming inside her, a feeling he once mistook for electricity or a strange energy - it might be the dreams that continue to haunt him, but it’s like being this close to Rey has awoken something inside him, something larger and more powerful than he ever could have imagined.

Rey hums something quietly in her throat, and Poe can’t place the tune, but he appreciates the lull of it, the way her palms spread over his shoulder blades, moving up and down soothingly as he tries not to start shaking again. She doesn’t hesitate in embracing him, but somehow, he can feel a strange insecurity there all the same.

“Rey.” She releases him to look at him, and he wants to take it back, wants to fold her into himself again, keep her to himself selfishly, but she’s right. They do need to leave, and soon. “About the other day-”

“No.” Rey shakes her head and smooths out the front of his robes once more. Her smile is kind and only slight reproving when she looks at him. “We don’t need to talk about it. You don’t need to explain.”

“I _do_ need to.” He’s more insistent than he intends, but Rey just shrugs, looking uncomfortable, her eyes darting away.

_Six hours after the call, Poe woke up in his bed, the daylight peeking in around the corners of the blinds. It didn’t even have the decency to rain._

_He turned fitfully, the sheets twisting around him, and his heart tightened at what he saw: Rey, sitting cross-legged in front of the door, her lightsaber in her hand. She was watching over him; he wondered briefly how he got to his room, but she answered only a moment later._

_“You fell,” Rey whispered, not looking away from the closed window. “I - I carried you here. I couldn’t leave you...not on the floor...I’m sorry.” She ducked her head as though ashamed, and Poe held his hand out to her._

_“Please.”_

_Her eyes flickered over to his uneasily, something shifting on her face before she nodded. Rey rose steadily, and she set her lightsaber on the bedside table as she walked towards him. She perched on the edge of the mattress and linked her hand with his. Her thumb stirred circles into his palm, and Poe swallowed convulsively, needing more contact, needing less...everything else._

_“Rey.” He tugged on her hand, not knowing how to summon the energy to form more words._

_“I’m here.”_

_“Need you.” It slipped out of him shamefully, as though it were even a well-kept secret at this point, and with the words slipped a few tears._

_Rey laughed, and days later, Poe would reflect that it didn’t quite sound like her normal laugh, her eyes closed, mouth twisted in almost a pained grimace. “You have me.”_

_He tugged again, the grief rising up once more, threatening to pull him down; Poe needed a tether, needed_ Rey _, needed a reminder of the things in the galaxy worth fighting for, now that-_

_“I know what he meant to you.” Rey lay down next to him, her head on the pillow next to his. She stayed above the covers, but having her near was good enough. “I’m so, so sorry.”_

_“Yeah.” Poe let the word out in a stuttered breath, grief carving through him and threatening to leave nothing in its path. Rey was here. Rey was real. Rey was-_

_Crying._

_He made a soft noise of concern, but she shook her head, not even bothering to wipe her eyes , the tears twining and twisting towards her hairline as her nose grew red. Rey placed a hand over his heart, and he wrapped his hand around hers without thinking. “Oh, Poe.” She wept then, and he realized it was his own pain she was feeling - Rey, who had been for so long denied other people, Rey, who had given up everything without ever having a choice, Rey, who had let herself care about a scrappy Senator from a planet she’d never even heard of before she was sent hurtling towards him-_

_Poe gasped slightly and released her hand. He wanted to ask what was that, the strange transfer of emotion that passed between them, the brief rush of everything she was thinking or feeling - but Rey wiped her eyes._

_“Anything.” She looked at him nervously and scooted closer to him, her knees knocking against his through the blanket. Tentatively, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his. While brief, and seemingly chaste, something strong lurked under the surface of it. “Whatever you need, I can give you.”_

_Poe placed his hand on her waist and blinked, not understanding through the storm inside of him. Muran was dead. Muran was gone. Muran was-_

_Rey was - still watching him, anticipation evident in her expression. She studied his face, her cheeks pink, and something distantly fell together in his mind._

_Was she offering -_

_She stared at him, still anxious, her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes wide and waiting._

_“No.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t want - that’s not what I- Gods. No.”_

_His words made her flinch, and he immediately regretted them, wanted to call them back. Rey nodded, and she pulled her hand away from his heart, her fingers curling into her palm as she returned it to a place of safety against her own chest._

_“Rey, I-”_

_“Don’t.” She smiled at him, beautiful and kind and hurt. Her hand shook for only a second as she reached out to place her hand against his cheek, and it was odd that while neither had moved, a distance seemed to have sprung up between them. “Rest, Senator. You need to rest.”_

_Mind still churning from the news, and Rey’s hesitant offer, Poe nodded. His eyes searched her face one last time, searching for her need for an apology, but something not quite like a mask had settled over her expression, guarding something quietly. Rey shook her head and smiled. “Rest.”_

_So he did._

“Please. Let me?” The bells choose this moment to ring out, the clangor spreading across the fields towards the small house, and the small room, and the two taking shelter inside it for a few minutes longer.

“After?” Rey tilts her head and steps away more fully, and Poe clears his throat.

“Yeah. After.” He takes her hand at the door, and Rey squeezes once before letting him go. He misses the contact immediately, but knows it’s for the best.

They walk, Poe in front, and Rey behind him, her eyes restlessly scanning the terrain, towards the grove of vosso trees at the bottom of a hill, the dalsa flowers whispering in the breeze. A wind off the Western Sea brings the scent of iron and salt, and Poe gazes out at it, his hands in his robes, as they walk towards where almost everyone is already gathered. A loose curl blows into his eyes, and Poe elects to ignore it, not wanting to focus on how he looks at this exact moment in time.

He’s been to Kesh before, of course. The mission to the Marisota Floodplains years prior had been his second to last with the Navy, and the memory stirs across the fields, tangling Poe up in its headiness, the thought of Muran, alive and well and in the ship next to his, the thought of irreverent laughter reaching across the comms, the thought of jumping out from his X-Wing and knowing that his _friend_ \- because Muran had been his friend, before they were lovers, after they were lovers, the whole kriffing time - was there to embrace him after a shaky landing.

More tears spill out, and he rubs them away quickly with the flat of his hand, the four day growth of his beard scratching under his palm. He can sense, not hear, Rey start to say something, but whatever it is, it’s lost to the Keshian winds and her own better judgement.

They approach the rest of the group, and Poe finds himself face to face with friends he hasn’t seen in years. Snap pulls him in for a hug without a moment’s hesitation, Kare ducking in right after. There’s a few faces he doesn’t recognize - a blonde humanoid female holding hands with another strikingly pretty, tan female. They nod at Poe, clearly aware of who he is, and he nods back, his eyes searching the small gathering.

“Where’s-”

“Dameron.” Iolo Arana walks towards them from the direction of the house, his face drawn and pale. His eyes flash in the Keshian sun, and Poe studies him for a long second. “Thanks for coming,” he murmurs, and that’s all he says before walking to the largest of the vossos, where a group of flowers has been braided into a wreath, resting against the silky bark of the tree.

They stand to face Iolo, who rests his hand on the tree for a long second before turning to address them.

Poe looks over his shoulder briefly - Rey stands at a respectful distance, her eyes muted but watchful, and she barely spares him a glance and a flash of recognition before she scans the opposite horizon.

“I know this is not how we intended to come back to Kesh.” Poe turns back around when Iolo starts to speak. The dark-skinned man has a hand on the wreath, his face turned towards it, and Poe’s stomach tightens unbearably. “We always planned to have the ceremony under this tree. You see, it was always his favorite, and...” Iolo trails off and clears his throat before pulling his hand away.

“Anton was my family, and I was his. We both lost our parents when we were young, and we wanted...well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, what we wanted.”

The dark haired woman to Snap’s left starts to cry, quietly, into her scarf, and Kare leans into her.

“The only thing I want now, is, well…” Iolo laughs bitterly and shakes his head before standing up tall, practically at attention. “Anton never was one for much ceremony, so if it’s alright with you all, I’d like to share with you one of his favorite poems.” Iolo laughs again, lighter this time. “Morbid bastard.”

“ _Stop all the chronos, cut off the phone,_

_Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,_

_Silence the xyloxan and with muffled drum_

_Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come._ ”

Iolo’s voice wavers in the beginning, and he stares into space in front of him, not quite looking at any in attendance. Snap wraps a burly arm around Poe’s shoulders - he realizes he was shaking, violently. _Why wasn’t I there? I could have saved him - he wouldn’t have needed to die -_

Up at the front, Iolo continues, unaware of the guilt screaming inside of the former pilot. 

“ _Let X-wings circle moaning overhead_

_Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'._

_Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,_

_Let the Bothan peacekeeper wear black cotton gloves._ ”

He doesn’t look like he’s on the verge of tears, although everyone listening is crying openly. Tears thicker than raindrops slide into Snap’s beard, and Poe clears his throat, forcing himself to look at Iolo - he doesn’t look like he’s going to cry.

No. He looks broken, as though someone had reached inside him and removed a vital light; nothing stirs under the luminescence of his eyes, and Iolo’s voice, rising and falling with the cadence of the poem, offers the only suggestion to what’s happening.

Poe’s looking at a man who has lost everything. He’s shattered, and it’s _all Poe’s fault._  

“ _He was my North, my South, my East and West,_

_My working week and my Benduday rest,_

_My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;_

_I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong_.”

 His voice cracks on the first line of the next stanza, but he pushes through - Poe forces himself to listen to each word, trying not to remember a voice in the dark hissing _you need to remember what it is to lose_ because he _does_ remember, he always remembered, and now other people are paying the price (as a consequence to something he doesn’t even fully understand). 

“ _The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,_

_Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,_

_Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;”_

 Iolo pauses for a long moment, his eyes shifting out to the Western Sea. Whatever he glimpses out on the horizon doesn’t seem to offer him any comfort, and his last line hangs around Poe’s neck worse than a hangman’s noose.

 _“For nothing now can ever come to any good._ ”

 ***

Keshian mourning practices have them stay on the planet for five days, sitting in the house - the house that Iolo had constructed for his _husband,_ who’s dead now, and every time he thinks it, it hits Poe like a blaster bolt to the chest - and during this time, Poe manages to murmur condolences now and then, but mostly, he manages to gather information on what’s been happening in the Republic’s Navy.

Whispers of piracy, ones that Muran had warned him about months ago now, had become shouts, with more and more squadrons dispatched to deal with the consequences. And it was the same every time - huge ships disappearing with little to no follow up from those in charge, refugees pouring in from corners of the galaxy supposedly made safe (and that’s what confuses Poe the most - how has the Senate not heard of this? Why has no one told Leia?), and soldiers dying with no explanation.

When they depart, five days after the funeral, Poe’s antsy and beyond ready to get back to Leia with all this information. But, it will have to wait until he’s firmly on Yavin. Leia isn’t on Chandrila, instead campaigning in Coruscant. She won’t step down from First Senator this cycle, not without a fight, but she’d pulled Poe aside before he departed with a warning to call her as soon as he had a secured line at his father’s house, and that he needed to ramp up his own campaign, for when he ran for the First Senator position in a few years.

Not four months ago, Leia telling him that he was her first pick for her position would have thrilled him, but it sits empty now in his chest. He isn’t sure what the future’s going to bring, especially in light of Muran’s death. He holds onto the hope that once he speaks to Leia, it will feel more settled, and he’ll have a clearer picture of what he’s meant to do - continue on his path, return to the military to investigate, burn the whole system down -

A small sound echoes down the passage of the cruiser towards him, from the direction of the cockpit. Poe smiles at the acknowledgement of Rey’s presence, and he wonders what she bumped into: it’s not like her to be clumsy.

They lifted off from Kesh’s surface ten minutes ago, and are now leaving atmo. The bizarre magnetic field that separates Kesh from the rest of the systems will prohibit them from entering Hyperspace or receiving communications until they clear it, in approximately half an hour.

Then, it’s a twenty hour jump to Yavin, which means he has little under a Standard Day with Rey, just Rey and no one else, with nothing to distract them, or interrupt important conversations - and after the last gut-wrenching days, Poe fully intends to cherish every good thing in his life, starting with her.

It’s something he can’t ignore - no matter what his future holds, he prays to the Force that Rey’s involved.

The Jedi herself clatters down the narrow corridor, and she smiles at him nervously. “Put it on autopilot.” She waves a hand back at the cockpit. “Technically BeebeeAte’s at the controls, but I trust him.”

Normally, he’d make a joke about the danger of anthropomorphizing dangerous little astromechs, but he doesn’t feel like joking right now. Instead, he catches Rey’s arm as she passes him, and he hates that she tenses under his touch.

He lets her go, but she remains frozen, eyeing him warily, her stance almost defensive. “Sorry.” Poe rubs his neck awkwardly. “I just - can we talk about it, now?” Rey eyes the end of the ship wistfully, and Poe snorts despite his own anxiety. “You aren’t thinking about using one of those escape pods, are you?”

“Maybe.” She crosses her arms and then sighs, jerking her head towards her cabin. Poe follows her inside, and the door remains open - an oddity, but then again, who could see them out here?

“The other day,” he begins, shifting on his feet; just because he practiced this, doesn’t make it any less nerve-wracking to execute.

“I’m sorry.” Rey interrupts him quickly. “It was a mistake. I - I misread the situation, how to help.”

“That’s just it.” Poe holds a hand out to her pleadingly, cursing the small size of the bunk. There’s less than a foot of space between them, and this conversation would be both easier and harder on the bed. “We both misread it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean...I thought you were offering to…” He grumbles under his breath, but gets it out. “...have sex with me.”

“I did.” Rey’s nose wrinkles adorably, and Poe nods, his worry confirmed. “I’m sorry, I thought it was - I found some holo-novels a few weeks ago, on your datapad” - _I thought I had deleted those, dear gods -_ “And in those, when someone is upset, they find....sex to be very comforting.”

“Those are novels,” Poe chokes out, wondering if his face is as red as it feels. “Just novels, Sunshine.”

“So sex isn’t comforting?” Rey cocks her head as though he’s confronted her with a very interesting, mildly frustrating problem, and Poe makes a desperate noise in the back of his throat.

“No. No, it is. I mean, it can be. Definitely.”

“Just” - Rey’s eyes drop to the floor, her shoulders rounding as though she’s hunching in on herself - “Sex with _me_ wouldn’t be comforting.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Poe slaps a hand to his forehead, and it makes a decent sound, one loud enough that it gets Rey to look up from her internalized shame. “Kriff, I did not say that - I think that’s what you misunderstood. I meant - at that moment, all I wanted was to hold you. That was it. I didn’t expect anything else, or want anything else at that moment. Kriffing hells, as if I wouldn’t want you.”

“So...sex with me _could_ be comforting?” A sly smile creeps across her features, and Poe rolls his eyes, ignoring the strange stab of lust in his gut.

He’s glad he didn’t take her up on it, he really is, but he has to admit, it feels like they’re on a collision course these days.

Poe goes for honesty, not wanting there to be any more misunderstandings between them.

“It would be. But I wouldn’t want that for your first time.”

“No?” Rey’s naivete mingles with something that feels an awful lot like seduction as she gazes up at him, as resplendent as ever in the half-light of the cabin.

“No. Your first time - _our_ first time...it should be something else.” Without having to move much, Poe steps forward and brushes his lips against her forehead. “Something good.”

“Oh.” Rey grabs the front of his shirt and nods thoughtfully. “What else do you want?” He isn’t imagining the way her lashes flutter, or the way his heart skips a beat from it - _and no, not right now, get it together Dameron, you’re both too fragile, too on edge -_

“I want it to be when it’s just the two of us. Nothing else in the galaxy in our way.”

“It’s just the two of us now.” Rey manages to tilt her head and press her lips against his cheek. “Right?”

“Rey.” He means to sound slightly admonishing, but it comes out as a groan, and he kisses her temple, swaying slightly as their ship continues on BB’s charted path.

“What else do you want?” It’s a demand, and she somehow steps closer to him, her chin tilted up so her eyes can glitter at him with an obvious challenge. “What would you want, for our first time?”

“I want it to be special.” Poe curses himself at how cheesy it sounds because this is _Rey,_ it’s guaranteed to be special. “For you. I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

He earns a snort from her, and he grins before he even knows the reason why. “Control issues?” she asks with an arched brow.

“Maybe a little.” Poe huffs a laugh and looks at the ceiling, if only to avoid the way Rey’s eyes are burning up at him. He holds her arms if only so he can have something to do with his hands, and he hates and loves how alive she feels in front of him, the strength of her seeping out in this charged moment. “I want…” He shakes his head. “No. What do you want?”

“Me?”

“For your first time.” Something screams at him to _back down, not the time, not the place,_ but something else builds up in his stomach, urging him forward, telling him that there’s nothing in the galaxy that’s going to feel as good as Rey. “What do you want” - he drags a thumb over her bottom lip, looking into her wide eyes at the last second - “sweetheart?”

A moment passes, and and then another, and Poe’s thinking he made a serious misstep, but then:

“You.”

Rey turns pink with the word that leaves her lips, and Poe feels like they kicked into Hyperspace without warning.

“Me?”

“I just want you.” Rey’s tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip, and the fact that he knows how very unpracticed that was, how natural, has him biting back a groan.

They drift together - the collision inevitable - and Poe strokes a piece of her hair from her eyes, the same strands that are always falling from her braid.

_He wants her hair down._

Add it to the list.

“I’d wait forever,” he says without warning, surprising even himself.

“For what?” Rey’s eyes don’t clear from the haze they’re in, and Poe kisses her forehead delicately, and then her cheek.

“For you,” he answers, his lips drifting to her jaw. Rey’s arms wrap around his neck, and they take a series of steps backwards, mostly guided by her enthusiasm in getting them towards the bed. “If we never-”

“I want you.” Rey trembles slightly when she says it, or maybe she’s been trembling this whole time. But, she looks him in the eye, jaw set stubbornly, when she says it.  “I don’t care if that means I’m a terrible Jedi. I don’t. Nothing about you feels wrong, Senator.”

“Are you sure?” _Not the time. This is not -_ it’s like the common sense in his mind has been turned down to almost nothing, washed away from the heat spiraling out from both of them, ensnaring him, pulling him down towards her, even as she surges up on her toes.

“Poe.” Rey so rarely says his name, his actual name, and whatever warning that was in his brain a second ago vanishes without a trace as she presses her mouth against his. His eyes flutter shut as his arms wrap around her, hauling her in tight enough that they both gasp.

He kisses her as her knees hit the side of the bed, and her hands, small but strong, grip his shirt and pull him down over her. Poe barely controls their collapse to the mattress so he doesn’t crush her, and tries to balance his weight over hers as they continue to kiss.

Rey makes an impatient sound into his mouth, and Poe gasps out a laugh as her hands scrabble at the back of his shirt. “You want this off?” He asks, kissing her jaw sharply, making a line to her ear as his hand strokes down her side tenderly. Rey nods desperately, and she squeaks when his teeth graze her ear lobe.

He sits up long enough to pull the shirt free - and as the cool air hits his chest, it’s like the quiet voice comes rushing back, reminding him that they’re both still so - and then Rey sits up and drags her nails against his chest, nipping and applying the right amount of pressure to his collarbone. Poe surrenders to her touch, dropping back down, guiding Rey until her back is against the mattress again, and it’s her hips that find his.

Poe slows down slightly, trying to give Rey the freedom to explore the sensation while also controlling his own urge to give in right then and there, and as she gasps and grinds her hips deliciously up against his, Poe returns to kissing her neck, inhaling the scent of metal and flowers that he’s come to identify with Rey.

It hits him like a bantha stampede, the thing that feels like it’s missing -

He loves her.

She needs to know that, before -

Rey’s hands curl in his hair, against his back, and she turns her head just easily enough to graze her teeth against his ear. The breath leaves Poe’s body in an embarrassing gasp, and his hips twitch involuntarily, dragging his now-hard cock against the warmth between Rey’s legs.

“Fuck.” Rey grips the blankets beneath her and then Poe’s shoulders. “Do that - again?”

Normally, he’d make a cheeky comment before complying, maybe offer a wink, but he’s a drowning man, and Rey’s air, and he nods desperately, gasping slightly as he obeys, dragging against her again, enough that they return to kissing in a frenzy.

Rey grabs his hand where it’s stirring circles against her hip, and pushes it under her tunic slightly. “You can,” she pants. “If you want to-”

Poe nods, the smooth skin of Rey’s stomach sending electric sparks through his fingertips as he glides his hand up.

Right as he passes over a spot that makes her jump, the comms ring shrilly, and they jump apart - Poe slams his head against the top of the bunk, and he curses vividly. Rey pets his head with a sympathetic noise, and Poe grumbles into her shoulder, holding her close as he can get.

“Guess we’re clear of the magnetic field,” Rey observes idly, as she kisses along his shoulder.

“Guess so.” Poe’s cross for having been interrupted, but then relief hits him - this would _not_ have been a good idea.

 _Right_?

He’s got to do some thinking clearly - he has a suspicion that it’s Rey’s statements from weeks ago, about her oath, and her fear of the Dark Side, that’s stopping him from just falling further into this with her.

But, he’ll have time to reflect later, and Rey pulls away from him with a sigh. “See you at the controls.” She chucks his abandoned shirt at him with a giggle and vanishes through the door. Poe mumbles to himself as he tugs the shirt on over his head, and then stumbles after her, willing his erection to go down.

Once he reaches the cockpit, he can sense something is terribly wrong.

Rey’s gripping the dashboard, her eyes fixed on the comms - no image has appeared, but a crackling voice can be heard, on repeat, and Poe walks forward quickly to rest a hand on Rey’s shoulder.

“Sunshine?”

She’s shaking, but not the way she had in his arms, in the bunk. Poe eyes her expression with concern before listening more carefully to the message on repeat.

“ _Rey - there’s been a - - on Ruusan.”_ A cold stone drops in Poe’s stomach - that’s Ben Solo’s voice. “ _Don’t have much time - don’t return to -- temple compromised. There’s - what? What the kriff are you-”_ The sound of blaster fire permeates the last few seconds of the transmission, cutting through the rise in panic in Ben Solo’s voice.  

“Rey?”

She looks up at him, visibly shaking now. Her eyes are wide and vacant, and her head shakes slowly.

“We have to go to Ruusan,” Poe decides, settling in the co-pilot’s chair and searching up the coordinates. BB-8 beeps helpfully and rolls forward. The message starts over again, and it’s Ben’s voice that snaps Rey out of her trance.

“No.” She knocks his hand out of the way and shakes her head. “No, we need to get you to Yavin. That’s more important.”

“What?” Poe blinks at her in surprise, not understanding. “Rey, that’s Ben. Your - “

“I know.” Rey sets her jaw and shakes her head, the nervous, sweet girl from minutes before completely gone. “I don’t …. I don’t trust it, Poe. Something feels strange.” Her hand goes to the comms, her fingers now steady. “We should call the temple.”

_Temple compromised -_

“No.” Poe shakes his head and grabs her hand this time. “No, what if it’s real?” Rey scoffs, but he shakes his head adamantly. “Rey, Muran is dead because the Republic made a bad call. No one will know that he died defending his friends. Something karked up is happening in the galaxy right now, and if we have a chance to save someone from it -” He swallows, but it seems to have worked.

Rey nods, her fingers relaxing against his. “Ruusan isn’t too long of a jump from Yavin,” she notes thoughtfully. “I can drop you off at your home, and then turn around and-”

“No.” If he were standing, Poe would have literally put his foot down. “No, Rey, you’d waste time” - she glares at him, but he turns up the charm, the persuasion in his voice as much as he can - “I’ll be fine. Give me a blaster, I can defend myself. I’ll stay on the ship. But, we need to help him.”

There’s a long, horrible moment where Rey just looks at him, but then she nods, wilting. “Okay.” She pulls her hand free and types in their new coordinates, adjusting the controls as she prepares for the jump. “But for the record, I don’t like this, Senator Dameron.”

“Noted.” He grips the handle next to her, and they both push forward, the cruiser leaping into Hyperspace and towards a friend in need.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh I hope this was even slightly coherent!!!!!
> 
> Pneumonia has taken much of my brainpower, and I'm surprised I was even able to write this. 
> 
>  
> 
> Hope it was halfway okay.
> 
>  
> 
> Apologies to WH Auden


	12. Ruusan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Rey answer the distress call on Ruusan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence in this chapter - non-graphic descriptions of wounds and fighting.

Poe taps his fingers against the dashboard, full of unbridled energy in Rey’s absence. She’s only been gone for a few minutes, but he already regrets the solemn promise he made, the one where he  _ stays on the ship, where it’s safe.  _

They landed less than seventeen hours after Ben’s transmission had come through, and Poe had barely been able to keep Rey calm, let alone himself; they were both full of a jittery anxiety that he remembers too well from his days in the Navy, and Rey had to meditate for over three hours on their approach to Ruusan. Poe had been left to drop the ship from hyperspace on the final approach, navigating between the arms of the nebulae that swirled through the former trade routes that had at one point led to the planet.

The ghost of Rey’s lips against his hovers, and Poe finds his fingers drifting to his mouth more than once. Their kiss goodbye had felt strange, Rey too on edge to say anything past a whispered farewell. Poe had held onto her hand as she walked away until it was too hard to keep their fingers locked, and she’d looked over her shoulder one last time, eyes distant but somehow sad as she waved goodbye.

So now, he sits and waits, one hand tapping against the dashboard, the other curled around his mother’s ring, the one he’s been dreaming of, in a very different location - visions of Rey wearing the ring have grown common since Muran’s death, and not a night goes by where he doesn’t wake up from some insight to a different life, some vision offered by the Force Tree, where Rey is his wife. Those nights, he turns in his bed, the bed that’s become more like  _ their  _ bed of late, and studies Rey sleeping next to him, whispers the words  _ my wife,  _ just to see how they feel.

They feel right.

Of course they do.

As he contemplates the depth and gravity of his feelings for her, Poe almost misses the way the comms crackle to life.

He dives for them and accepts the call, and a holo flickers to life on the dashboard; the figure makes the air punch out of Poe’s lungs in relief.

“ _ Ben, _ ” he breathes. “Oh, thank the Maker.”

“Senator.” Ben nods calmly. “I take it you landed safely?”

“Yeah.” Poe nods and eyes the door behind him. “Gods, it’s good to see you. Are you okay?”

“Yes?” Ben cocks his head. “Where is Rey?”

“She’s coming to get you,” Poe explains, sagging against his chair in his relief. “Whatever’s going on, we can get you out of here.”

There’s a pause, just long enough to make Poe straighten up again. “...Out of where, exactly?” Ben says eventually, brow furrowed. “... I wasn’t aware any ships landed at the temple.”

“What?” Poe’s voice shakes. “We - we got your transmission, Solo. Cut the crap, we’re here for a rescue.”

The next two words freeze Poe’s blood in his veins. “What transmission?”

“This one” - he hits play, but it comes out garbled now, and he frowns. “What the kriff?” He prods at the machine, but all that comes out is unintelligible nonsense.

“ _ Poe. _ Poe, tell me what happened.”

“We got a transmission, from you. You said - that you were on Ruusan, and you were in trouble, and we couldn’t go to the temple because it was compromised. You were attacked at the end-”

“I’ve been training Padawans all week,” Ben snaps. “And I certainly wouldn’t do that on  _ Ruusan.  _ I’m here at the temple.”

“What?” He feels dizzy, like he’s not getting enough air, and his legs shake as he stands. “So who sent-”

“Poe, listen to me, you have to get Rey off that planet, now,” Ben barks, and Poe nods, already fumbling for his blaster. “Ruusan is a Sith planet, full of dark energy. Luke forbade us all from going there years ago - you need to get Rey the kriff out of there.”

“Who sent it?” Poe asks even as he prepares to sprint. “Ben, what does this-”

“We’ll figure it out, just - just  _ go _ !” Ben tears at his hair. “I’ll send support to Ruusan immediately, but it’s a bit of a jump. Get her out of there.” Ben waves a hand at the transmission and disappears, but Poe’s already sprinting off the ship, slamming his elbow into the exit panel and not even waiting for the ramp to lower fully before tearing down it, sliding and jumping the last bit of distance to the ground. 

Ruusan had been colonized thousands of years ago, but had been a bit abandoned around the Galactic Civil War - while some trading outposts exist on the planet, there’s thousands of miles of terrain that most won’t go near.

Like the Valley of the Jedi, where they landed.

It’s eerily silent at first as Poe runs through the landscape, following the blip on his chrono that marks Rey’s beacon. He prays to every god he can name that the beacon is still on Rey, that she’s safe, and okay, and nearby, and whatever the kriff it was that lured them here hasn’t found her.

He’d insisted on coming here, he thinks, too terrified to fully feel the guilt that hovers at the edge of his thoughts - he’ll feel guilty later, when he has time, when she’s safe and in his arms again - he was the one who said they shouldn’t call the temple to confirm, that they should hurtle along, headlong into danger.

Poe had been so paralyzed at the grief of Muran’s unnecessary death, that he’d exposed the woman he loves to an unknown threat, carelessly, unnecessarily,  _ selfishly _ .

He’s nearing the spot on his map that tells him Rey is near when he hears it - even though it’s been years since Master Skywalker tested him, he recognizes the sound. It’s haunted his dreams, for one, and once you’ve heard it, you can’t forget it -

It’s the sound of lightsabers crossing. 

Poe picks up the speed, ignoring the pull of muscles in his back, the stab of pain in the knee that never quite healed after a bad eject, his blaster a cold and unfamiliar weight in his hand. There’s an outcropping of rock up ahead, and he ducks next to it, before adjusting his grip on the blaster and peeking around the edge.

Rey’s across from a shrouded figure, ominous and terrifying for its familiarity. Poe’s seen that figure, heard its voice, and as it addresses Rey, saying something he can’t quite discern, he’s overwhelmed by the singular certainty that  _ this  _ is who killed Anton Muran. Rage almost blinds him, but Rey needs him - 

Or does she?

For the first time in his memory, Rey’s lightsaber is activated; dual blades of golden light spring forth from her hilt, and she spins elegantly around the cloaked figure, who wields two separate, bright red lightsabers. There’s a close call, suddenly, where Rey ducks too close, and a lightsaber catches her on the upper arm. She grits her teeth but keeps fighting, but it’s Poe who feels as though he’s been cut, feels it burning along his arm.

The figure speaks again, but he can hear it this time - 

“I know all about you, little Jedi.”

“You don’t know  _ anything _ ,” Rey seethes, slashing out expertly, and catching the figure on the upper thigh. There’s a hiss and yowl of pain, and Rey doesn’t relent, driving them back instead. 

“Don’t I?” The figure doesn’t seem irritated that Rey cut them, if anything, they’re elated at her response. “Born in the year 13, in a forgotten, little town in Jakku, to a mother who didn’t know what to do with you?”

“Stop it.” Rey’s steps falter for the first time, and she immediately loses ground for it, the other figure slashing and weaving around her, forcing her back. 

“Born to a mother who didn’t love you, and a father who - well. Well, there was no father, was there?”

“That’s not true,” Rey screams, her form wavering again, and she gets kicked in the thigh for it. Poe readies his blaster, preparing to take the shot, no matter what the consequences are for him. He just needs a clear shot on this monster taunting Rey, needs to distract them so Rey can regain the upper hand.

“It’s not the story Skywalker told you. Let me guess, he said your parents were down on their luck traders who gave you away to a slaver?” Rey doesn’t respond, just desperately tries to strike, and she almost trips over the rocky ground. “Skywalkers always did struggle with honesty. Especially when the truth of you is so frightening - no father, just a mother who all the locals thought was crazy, claiming that she’d found herself with child despite knowing no man?”

They advance quickly now, forcing Rey backwards even more, on her toes, her lightsaber up to parry each strike delivered with a cool efficiency.  _ Come on,  _ Poe thinks desperately.  _ You can do this, sweetheart -  _

“They all thought she was crazy, so she turned to Spice, and she sold you the first chance she got - you, her greatest shame, her greatest fear. That’s the story that’s true, my dear, and there’s no point in fighting it.”

“You’re lying.” Rey’s switched to purely defensive tactics now, as the figure advances, their motions frighteningly aggressive for how calm their voice is. 

“I can feel the rage inside you, little Jedi.” After knocking Rey backwards, onto the ground, the figure raises their left blade, but turns off the right, and extends a hand as well. “I can teach you how to harness it, how to make cruel people pay. Why let the Jedi and the Republic continue to drag their feet, when millions of children, just like you, suffer? They’re no better than the slavers, and you know it, you’ve thought it -”

Rey doesn’t answer right away, her lightsaber held in front of her anxiously, and the figure cackles delightedly, distracted by Rey’s hesitation. 

It’s time.

Poe storms out from his hiding spot, blaster extended, and fires at the other figure. 

To his intense shock and horror, the beam of blaster fire hangs in mid-air, suspended between him and his target. The hooded figure merely raises a hand, and cocks their head towards Poe.

“Hello, Senator.” The oily voice washes over him, making him feel trapped and bogged down, helpless in their gaze, even as their face remains hidden. “It’s good to see you again.”

He can’t move. He’s trapped by something, his feet frozen, body locked, jaw immobilized. He can’t even shout out to Rey, who’s staring at him with an intense fear.

It doesn’t go unnoticed, of course.

“Ah, how sweet.” The figure laughs sardonically. “The two lovebirds. Honestly, why the Jedi keep sending pretty, little things to help tragically attractive senators is beyond me. It’s always a recipe for disaster. Just ask Darth Vader.”

“It’s your fault you know.” The blades are both back on now, one pointed at Poe, the other at Rey. “That the little pilot had to die. What was his name?”

_ Muran - _

“Ah yes, Muran. He was so brave.” There’s a mocking sniff, and a hatred Poe’s never felt rears up inside him. Rey struggles to her feet, teeth bared. “Does the senator know it’s your fault?”

_ What?  _

“Does he know what you saw, what you failed to report on, for fear of what your other visions showed you?” The figure laughs again, and it feels like a thousand jagged wounds. “It’s all your fault, Jedi.” They cock their head and consider Poe. “Well. Maybe a little his fault, too. But you, you should have been stronger. You’ve been dreaming of that man’s death for  _ weeks,  _ and you were too afraid of what else the Force was telling you to let anyone know?”

“I’m sorry,” Rey’s turned to Poe now, her attention off the figure, her posture defeated. “I’m-”

“He doesn’t want your apologies, little girl. He wants his lover back.”

_ That’s not - that’s - _

He can’t speak, or move, or deny anything the figure is saying - 

“He’ll never forgive you.”

“Poe-”

_ I already did, there’s nothing to forgive, it was my fault too, but mostly it’s  _ their  _ fault -  _

He doesn’t blame Rey, he can’t, not when he loves her like this, not when even now, when he’s surely about to die, his only thought is that Rey needs to get out of here - 

It rises up in him like the tide against the shores of Chandrila, surging inside him like a Yavinese thunderstorm, and he can feel it, the only thing inside of him that’s mobile in the face of whatever hold this  _ thing  _ has on him - he loves her, he loves Rey, he -

_ I love you -  _

The thought splinters but expands as he wills it toward her, and Rey blinks at him in shock, her cheeks flushing, eyes which had been dulled by exhaustion brightening - and she smiles back at him, almost sadly. 

Then, like watching a bridge form, he feels the Force wrap around him, winnow down, and extend between them, a golden thread that rapidly builds up into something more -

_ I love you, too.  _

The laughter stops as the figure studies them. “Interesting.” The syllables drip out irately, like they think it’s anything but. 

Rey’s smile lingers as she tears her gaze away from him, and the golden expanse between them still continues, and Poe can  _ feel  _ the way the Force wraps around her, can feel how she delves from anger into something much more open and expansive, much more selfless -  _ protection _ . 

Rey fights to protect him now, not out of rage or fear or anger - she fights seamlessly, her lightsaber moving around her in a dizzying arc, and the figure is driven back, dual blades no match for the way Rey moves through time and space, like a goddess come down to seek justice.

“Fine!” The figure barks. “You’ve chosen this, Jedi!” A shrill whistle pierces the air, and Poe feels himself released from the hold in the Force, whether by Rey or the figure is anyone’s guess -

A squadron of stormtroopers appear over the ridge, fifteen or so, and his jaw drops - he hasn’t seen stormtroopers outside a history book, hasn’t felt that fear since his childhood, the fear that masked men dressed in white would come to drag his parents from their house in the middle of the night, would come to kill his grandfather and drag him away, screaming. The fear is overwhelming now, and he barely ducks out of the way when the first volley of blaster fire comes.

“Poe!” Rey screams, a surge of fear from her own end of whatever’s sprung up between them. 

The figure is running away now, and they stop and pivot to stare down at the scene, Rey moving towards Poe, lightsaber moving quickly to deflect the blaster fire. The movement pulls the hood down, and Poe can see her now: a woman, tall and thin, a shaved white head, and ice blue eyes that pierce into him from a hundred feet away. 

“Kill the Senator. Spare the Jedi,” she orders before disappearing from sight..

“Stay close to me, Dameron,” Rey pants, her lightsaber a blur. “You aren’t going to die.”

“That’s good to hear,” Poe jokes, aiming for the nearest stormtrooper. He hits them square in the chest, and then he aims for the plasma cannon carried by a large trooper in the middle of the squadron. When he hits it, something ignites, and three stormtroopers are struck, hitting the ground with sickening finality.

“Good shot,” Rey praises with a feral grin. She raises her hand towards the pack, and pulls backwards  - they stumble forward like puppets, and with a wave of her hand, six more collapse to the ground. The effort strains her, and Poe can see blood trickling from her nose.

“Rey, we need to get to the ship.” Poe shoots an approaching stormtrooper, but his focus is more on Rey. That’s how he misses it.

That same stormtrooper’s final action is to lift his blaster and aim towards them. The beam hits Poe in the side, and he feels the air leave his lungs for the second time today.

This one feels a little more permanent.

“Kriff,” he swears, but only half the word gets out as he slams to his knees and tilts towards the ground.

“Poe?  _ Poe _ !” Rey screams above him, and he reaches out towards her, terrified even as his vision blacks out that she’s turned her back to the melee. 

“Don’t worry,” he whispers. Only the first syllables slip out. “ _ D- wo- _ ”

“Poe,” Rey sobs, her hands trembling as she fumbles with his side. He knows it’s a bad sign when he can’t even scream in pain as her hands pass over the wound. “You- you’re going to be okay, it’s going to - I’m going to get you out of here.”

“S’ok-” Poe smiles up at her, forgetting where they are - why does Rey look so sad - Rey should never look so sad - “S-”

The black in the corners of his vision creeps forward, and the golden thread that connected him to Rey feels frayed, right before it severs, and Rey screams again, this time an unholy sound. She stands, hand raised, and the last thought Poe has before falling unconscious is that  _ she’s the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and  _ -

Darkness.

***

The pain in his side might be what wakes him up.

Poe blinks and comes back into himself slowly, his tongue thick and head pounding. The light is green now, not the twisted red it was on Ruusan, and he can’t quite understand it. 

“Wh-” He sits up but groans, clutching his side, and he feels the cool stickiness of a bacta pack under his fingertips. Poe blinks a few more times, his blurry vision clearing, and he sees a familiar painting across the room, one of a beautiful woman in front of an A-Wing.

He’s in bed, clean, white sheets pulled up to his waist; Poe counts - he has all four limbs, and the only thing that seems really awful is his side. Probably lost a sold amount of blood from the blaster fire, broke a few ribs from the impact of the blast, but if he’s sitting in a bed on Yavin, in his childhood bedroom, then things can’t be too bad. 

The door opens as he realizes where he is, and in walks a person who brings tears to his eyes automatically.

“Papa.” Poe doesn’t know why he’s crying, but he is, and his father is too. Kes Dameron moves across the room quickly, sobbing openly as he rushes to embrace Poe. 

“Mijo.” Kes kisses his hair and his forehead before wrapping him in his arms, careful to avoid the wrappings around Poe’s middle. “Oh gods, you’re awake.”

“How long was I out?” Poe asks, his fingers gripping his father’s shirt, embarrassingly tight. 

“Two days.” Kes sits on the edge of the bed after hugging him close one last time, and switches to holding Poe’s hand. “You were declared stable after the first six hours, but you’ll be fine. A week in bed, they said.”

Poe nods and squeezes his dad’s hand, still feeling ridiculously emotional. He coughs and wiggles his feet against the covers, overwhelmingly grateful that he can feel and move his legs. He smiles at his dad, who smiles back, at least until Poe asks: “Where’s Rey?”

The smile falters, and his eyes dart to the door. 

“Papa?” Poe’s heart pounds uncomfortably in his throat, nausea rising up inside him. “Papa, where is she?”

The door opens again, and Poe thinks he gets whiplash from how quickly he turns to see the newcomer, sickening hope developing that he’ll turn and see Rey, bandaged, but whole and smiling at him, ready to tease him for fainting on her. 

Luke Skywalker walks in instead, a worried frown creasing his weathered face.

“Hey kid.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
>  
> 
> (Sorry for the eleven day delay, still recovering)


	13. Yavin IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe wakes up on Yavin IV and requires some healing before he returns to normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“How long was I out?” Poe asks, his fingers gripping his father’s shirt, embarrassingly tight._
> 
> _“Two days.” Kes sits on the edge of the bed after hugging him close one last time, and switches to holding Poe’s hand. “You were declared stable after the first six hours, but you’ll be fine. A week in bed, they said.”_
> 
> _Poe nods and squeezes his dad’s hand, still feeling ridiculously emotional. He coughs and wiggles his feet against the covers, overwhelmingly grateful that he can feel and move his legs. He smiles at his dad, who smiles back, at least until Poe asks: “Where’s Rey?”_
> 
> _The smile falters, and his eyes dart to the door._
> 
> _“Papa?” Poe’s heart pounds uncomfortably in his throat, nausea rising up inside him. “Papa, where is she?”_
> 
> _The door opens again, and Poe thinks he gets whiplash from how quickly he turns to see the newcomer, sickening hope developing that he’ll turn and see Rey, bandaged, but whole and smiling at him, ready to tease him for fainting on her._
> 
> _Luke Skywalker walks in instead, a worried frown creasing his weathered face._

“Where’s Rey?” Poe repeats stubbornly, his father’s hand firm on his leg, as though Kes wants to keep him lying down. That makes sense, the still logical part of Poe’s brain accedes, it makes sense because he’s injured, and he’s about to scream at a Jedi, one of the most powerful Jedi in history, and then in screaming at him, will most definitely expose that not only is he in love with another Jedi, but also, they’ve done some decidedly non-Jedi things together.

“She’s resting.” Luke studies his face, his own expression inscrutable, but Poe doesn’t back down.

“Well, I want to see her.” He tries to swing his legs off the bed but hisses in pain.

“Nice try, kid.” Luke actually laughs and walks further into the room. “You’ve got another few days before you’re cleared to walk.”

“I’m sure I can walk.” Poe scowls and bends his legs to demonstrate, but his father’s hand is firm on his knee, pinning him back down.

“Nope.” Kes frowns at him, wagging his finger. “Doctor Kalonia’s orders. No moving.”

“Doc is here?” Poe groans and holds a hand over his eyes. “Oh gods, she’s going to make fun of me.”

“She’s already been making fun of you, if it’s any consolation.” Luke is still smiling and settles into the other free chair at Poe’s bedside. Smiling is good. Smiling isn’t an accusation of  _ hey, have you been having sex dreams about the Chosen Padawan recently?  _ Or, worse,  _ you haven’t been luring our sweetest Padawan down a path of lust and sin, have you _ ?

What they have isn’t sinful, Poe knows, but he understands that their situation - flirty, thirty-something Senator falling in love with a fresh-faced twenty-one year old virgin - doesn’t … exactly read well to outsiders.

_ The Force approves _ ? Poe would want to weakly suggest, but he has a feeling that’ll earn him either a backhand from his father, or a Force-Backhand from Master Skywalker, no matter how true it is.

“So.” Luke’s smile twitches into something closer to a frown. “What exactly happened on Ruusan?”

“Rey didn’t tell you?” Poe eyes his blankets to avoid making eye contact a little longer.

“She’s been unconscious since we pulled you off that planet. In the middle of a firefight, might I add.”

“She’s-” Poe tries to get out of bed again, but Luke and Kes but hold him back. “Sorry, sorry. I just - she saved my life.”

“We know, kid.” Luke sighs and rubs his beard.

“Why were you even on Ruusan?” Kes asks. Poe notices, not for the first time, how grey his father’s hair is now. “Ben said something about a tampered holo?”

“Yeah. We, uh, caught a transmission, of Ben. He said he was on Ruusan and needed Rey’s help immediately.” Poe’s jaw works for a second as he tries to figure out how to admit the next part. “Rey didn’t want to go - but Ben’s message said the Temple was compromised, and so were transmissions, and it wasn’t safe. So. I … insisted we go straight to Ruusan without telling anyone.”

“ _ Why would you do that _ ?” His father hisses in Yavinese, and Poe shrugs miserably. Luke looks between them, and Kes doesn’t wait for Poe to respond to explain to Luke, “My son can be … a little hot-headed.”

“Hey,” Poe protests, but only half-heartedly. Because it’s true. 

Luke’s smile is still kind though. “I know a thing or two about hot-headed pilots.”

Poe squints at Luke in confusion. “...I’m not a pilot. Sir.”

“Sure you aren’t.” Luke waves an airy hand, his smile not budging, and something strange coils in Poe’s gut. 

“It’s not Rey’s fault,” Poe insists, even though they aren’t near the realm of accusing people of being at fault. “She’s - she wanted to call the Temple. Wanted to stop and ask for guidance. I pushed her to go because - because one of my friends had just been killed by a Sith.”

Silence.

Painful silence.

Something erupts behind Poe’s breastbone, an anxiety that feels much older than he does, and it flares from his heart to his temples, causing him to hiss between his teeth and place his fingers there.

“Mijo?” Kes sounds worried, but distant, and it’s several seconds before Poe can blink and the panic that isn’t quite his clears.

Luke’s staring at him again, something wary in his eyes. “I think…” He clears his throat and rubs his beard again. “I might have tested you too early, Poe Dameron.”

“Sir?” Poe rubs his side, which has started to twinge again after the surge of anxiety. 

“But,” Luke’s expression has yet to clear, “First, take it from the top, if you don’t mind.”

***

Luke walks away from Poe’s recounting of what had happened a little more tired, a little more defeated in his posture. He feels guilty for it, but at the same time, Poe’s consumed with wanting to know how Rey is.

It’s like he can almost, just barely sense her, somewhere in this house. 

It’s odd - it’s the way he felt about the Tree, the one he can feel humming even now in the distance, out past the koyo fields. The Tree and Rey - he can feel them both, only right now, the Tree is much…louder.

If he didn’t think it would catch him a psych eval, he’d bring it up to Luke.

After Luke shuts the door behind himself, the sound of his trudging footsteps fading away, down to the corner of the house where Poe  _ swears  _ he can feel Rey, Kes Dameron fixes him with a look.

A Dad Look.

“What?” Poe grumbles, picking at the quilt over his lap.

“Stop that.” Kes smacks his fingers lightly. “Your grandmother made that.”

“Sorry.” 

“Mhm. I’m sure you are.” Kes squints at him. “Why didn’t you tell Skywalker about you and Rey?”

“I told him what he needed to know!” Poe says, perhaps a little too defensively.

“I  _ mean _ ” - Kes rolls his eyes with a vivacity usually reserved for teenagers - “Why didn’t you tell him you  _ love  _ her?” Poe splutters, but Kes keeps going, an evil grin on his face. “Well. You totally  _ did  _ admit that you love her, just not with your words. So what gives?”

“I did not - I don’t-” Poe hangs his head. “How long have you known?”

“Since you introduced us over the holo.” Kes ruffles his hair affectionately, and Poe only sort of attempts to swat him away. “My starling, if I can tell from literal systems away, how are you going to hide it from the greatest Jedi of all time, when he’s three feet away?”

“You don’t think he knows, do you?” Poe flops backwards on the bed and covers his face with a pillow dramatically, feeling fifteen again. 

“Would that be so bad?”

“I don’t think it would make him happy, papa.” Poe’s voice is muffled by the pillowcase.

“Why wouldn’t he be happy? My son is amazing!” Kes declares indignantly.

“She’s a  _ Jedi _ , Papa. Celibate, remember?”

Kes gasps obnoxiously, and Poe can hear him clap a hand over his mouth. “You two are having  _ sex _ ?!?”

Poe groans loudly before snagging the pillow off his face and chucking it at his father. Kes squawks and dodges it, so Poe sits up quickly to hurl another pillow at him.

Forgetting, of course, that he took a blaster bolt to the ribs a few days ago.  

“Ow,” Pow whines, “Ow, ow-”

“Sorry, mijo.” Kes looks truly apologetic as he guides Poe back to a comfortable position. “Sorry.”

***

He’s cleared to walk two days later; by that point, Poe’s felt Rey wake up, but apparently, she has yet to be cleared from bedrest as well.

“You took a nasty hit,” Kalonia explains primly when he grumbles about the length of his stay in bed, shoving the thermo-reader into his ear with little to no regard for how uncomfortable it is. “And she expended too much energy. Quite the pair.”

“They’re well matched,” Luke laughs from his perch in the window. “His mother protected my sister once. I think it was much the same confluence of temperament.”

Poe blushes furiously and prays Luke can’t tell why. Luckily, the old Jedi doesn’t look over at him; Kalonia does, though, and she rolls her eyes mightily. Luke totters away after Kes calls out from the kitchen that lunch is ready, and Kalonia smirks down at Poe before grabbing something out of her bag.

“Are you up to date on your implant, Senator?” She waves a small box around, and Poe’s blush gets worse. 

“...It expires in a month,” he mutters quietly. Kalonia grins and swaps it out without another question or comment.

That’s good: Poe’s pretty sure he’d die of embarrassment if the woman who delivered him asked him when she’d be seeing little Senators running around.

***

Poe walks to Rey’s room the second he’s allowed to; Kes and Luke hang back in the sitting room while he guides himself carefully down the hallway, his hand pressed to the cool clay that forms the inner walls of his parents’ main building. 

He knocks, once, and waits.

“Poe?” 

With a smile, he keys the access code in, and finally the doors slide open to reveal Rey, sitting in the eastward window, daylight streaming in around her. 

It’s only been a week since he saw her, but it’s felt like a lifetime (no matter how much of those five days he spent unconscious). 

“Sunshine.” Poe grins as the doors hiss shut behind him. She really is Sunshine right now, sitting among the plants his father’s been nursing in here. The forest of Yavin 4 stretches on just outside the window, and the green light wraps itself around Rey as if to say  _ home, home  _ -

Yavin 4 has always been his home; something stirs in his chest at the understanding that Rey might fit here, too, that she was always meant for this much green.

“Hey, flyboy.” She smiles, and Poe can ignore the massive circles under her eyes, the way her cheekbones look, the blanket pulled over her lap, because she’s  _ smiling.  _

He crosses the room with a lot more strength than he’d managed in the hallway, feeling physically buoyed by the sight of Rey. Poe walks to her side as quickly as he can, and then he kneels down at the window seat and smiles up at her, feeling bizarrely emotional. 

“I missed you,” Poe admits in a whisper, and Rey smiles at him.

“I’ve been right here, laserbrain.”

“I know.” Poe grabs her hand and pulls it to his lips. “Still missed you.”

Rey’s smile turns serious, but she does lean down and press her lips to his hair. They sit like that as the light streams around them, hand in hand, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling.

Then -

Rey’s fingers curl through his hair. “Did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“I meant it.”

“I did too.” Poe opens his eyes to smile at her, and Rey scoots over, crooking a single finger at him. 

With his side screaming in protest and something like a cry building in his gut, Poe joins her in the narrow windowseat, pressing up close against her. 

“Luke’s -”

“I don’t care.” Rey blinks up at him, her hair a soft cloud around her head - responding to the humidity, probably. It’s more endearing than it should be, as is the faint pink that tinges her freckled cheeks. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Poe answers, and then she brushes her lips over his, and he’s lost to sense.

He could have lost  _ her,  _ after all. A feeling that defies logic rages inside him, and he suddenly doesn’t care that the head of the Jedi Order is down the hall from them, no doubt picking up on the way his blood is racing in his veins, even as his heart begins to settle, finally settle, at having Rey in his arms again.

Rey nips at his bottom lip playfully, and Poe groans. “Not here, sweetheart,” he murmurs. Rey makes a noise of complaint, but he shakes his head. “I’m still healing, and so are you.”

When he pulls away to look at her, she does look exhausted, as though this brief moment they shared has drained her of what little energy she had stored up. Poe’s warmer under the collar than he normally would be after one kiss - even a kiss with the person he’s convinced is his Force-ordained soulmate - so he knows he’s also not looking too great.

“I love you,” he whispers again because he can, because he almost lost her. He curls his arm around her and holds her closely to him. Her own hands twist in the fabric of his loose shirt. “Endlessly.”

***

He manages to get down to the village a week after that - something about seeing Rey revitalizes him, speeds his healing up, and soon he’s ready to talk to the villagers.

Rey comes with him, leaning a little on a staff his father had lent her when they step out of the speeder. She smiles though, at the vibrant marketplace, at the children who crowd around Poe while demanding stories of Chandrila, at the birds flying overhead in their bright colors of yellow and blue and purple. 

She’s always two steps behind him, her staff in hand, her eyes keen and watchful even as her expression remains soft and happy. Poe doesn’t think there’s a way for her to turn that part of herself off, even here on Yavin 4 where he doesn’t have many enemies. He seriously doubts the woman who sells koyo-ice is going to shoot him, even if Tabi does remember him stealing three cones when he was ten years old and a bit more of a hellion. 

They take things slow that day, Poe winding around the various shops and homes, shaking hands and listening to how the harvest is going, how the village is setting up for the Festival in three weeks’ time. 

Towards sunset, Yavin dipping low in the horizon, casting an orange tint to the village, and bringing out the reds in Rey’s hair - Poe would take a holograph, if he didn’t think she’d use that staff on him - they walk past an open air courtyard between three buildings. 

A lively march is playing, and Poe stops for a second and smiles. BB-8, who’s been trailing around with them all day, hoots in interest and whirls towards the sound of a celebration.

“Beebee, we aren’t invited,” Poe hisses, laughing despite his mild embarrassment. “Oh, gods.” He turns and shakes his head at Rey, who just looks slightly confused. His skin flushes then, at the significance of what she’s about to see. “C’mon.” He holds his hand out to her, and she takes it, her eyes still slightly guarded as she looks around the entrance of the courtyard. 

They walk towards the party as the song, played by a small quartet of musicians, shifts to an air. People start to dance in the middle of the courtyard, and against the back wall stands a canopy, propped up on what looks like branches, with Yavini flower vines twined around them. 

In the very middle of the dancers are two incredibly happy young women - their happiness is undeniable, streaming out from them, tugging at Poe’s gut, making his own smile broader until his cheeks ache with it. One girl looks more like Poe and Kes, like a native Yavini, and she wears a white dress that floats around her, and a veil that’s pinned to her black hair; the other has alabaster skin and short-cropped platinum hair, wearing a green dress, and is a head shorter than her bride. 

The crowd claps and shouts joyfully as the shorter woman manages to spin the taller one, and they both laugh as they return to embrace each other. 

BB-8 chirps happily, spinning in a circle around Poe and Rey’s feet as they watch the merriment. Poe’s own foot can’t stop from tapping, and his face still hurts from how hard he’s smiling. 

After the absolute bantha-shit of the last few weeks - losing Muran, burying Muran, the attack on Ruusan, almost losing Rey - this is a potent, needed reminder of  _ why  _ he fights, and of why he loves his home so much. This joy, this expression of love and dedication, even this ceremony: it all would be crushed under the imperial rule that his parents fought against.

Yavin IV is a place of freedom, and it always should be. And the joy and freedom Poe experienced here should be felt across the galaxy, from the Core to the Outer Rim and the furthest possible reaches.

This is why he’s fighting.

Rey leans into his side as the resolution steels itself in his veins, and she smiles up at him. “What is this?” She asks, and Poe blushes, somewhat distracted now from his feeling of higher purpose.

“A binding ceremony.” He tilts his head to the exit, and he and Rey leave the party behind, walking down the quiet avenue with Beebee close behind, the droid happily trilling some version of the march they’d just heard. 

“I’ve never seen one before.” Rey’s arm is in his, and Poe tries not to focus on it too much, lest she suddenly read his mind again and see exactly what he’s hoping for. 

Not that he’d particularly want to hide it from her at this point.

“Are they always like that?” Rey asks, breaking his train of thought.

“Marriage is a bit more flexible on Yavin 4,” Poe explains while they wind through the village towards the speeder. Rey’s leaning against him more than the staff, and it thrills him more than it should that she’d choose to rely on him like that. “Some binding ceremonies are more traditional and look like that. It was on the small side because this is a smaller village, but I’ve been to one that had over three hundred people who came to celebrate.”

“I don’t think I’ve even met three hundred people,” Rey grumbles, and Poe grins at her.

“An official wedding though, it’s not always necessary. Yavin 4 was a colony planet, and then a champion of individual rights following the Battle of Endor; so now, really all you need is a ring and a pledge. You don’t even need a witness - my mother pushed really hard for that law to be passed when she was alive.”

“Why does not having a witness matter?”

“Because.” Poe wrinkles his nose. “The Empire worked really hard to make marriage a convoluted thing. Very official, very controlled, very cut and dry. If they could make more and more rules about how and when you could marry, they could reduce how much independence people had, and how much they viewed themselves as people.”

“Oh.” Rey’s quiet for a moment, and Poe bumps her hip softly to get her to look up from the ground. She gives him a shy smile, so he figures she hasn’t pieced together how violently his heart is beating, for her, always for her. 

“Yeah. So now, on Yavin 4, as long as you’re both of age and are willingly entering into the marriage, you just need a ring to signify your bond, and to swear an oath to each other. And that’s it. No strings, just a promise to one another and to the Force.”

“I like the sound of that.” They’ve reached the speeder now, and twilight is slowly unspooling over the moon. 

Overhead, the stars are winking to life in the purple-blue sky, but Poe can’t look away from Rey’s eyes. 

He isn’t sure who moves to kiss who, but he does know that he never wants to stop. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the long, long delay in updating this! I knew what I wanted to do, and I've planned the rest of this fic, but the words just weren't coming (until today!!!)
> 
>  
> 
> I'm so hoping people still care about this fic! Eep! I've made you all wait so long and I can finally confirm -
> 
>  
> 
> There is smut in the next chapter.
> 
> Actual smut.
> 
> Not even dream smut.


	14. Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe considers duty, honor, and vows while campaigning on Yavin IV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I....uh..... huh.

He’s made at least ten speeches in half as many days, campaigning around Yavin well before the time Kalonia wanted him even off of bedrest.

It’s been over a week since he emerged back into world after his brush with death, and honestly, Poe’s never been more tired. He steps down from the small stage, rubbing his next tiredly, and Rey appears at his elbow; she’s never far behind him these days, a mostly silent shadow who carries burdens of her own, her energy not quite what it used to be since the Sith attacked them on Ruusan.

“Should I get the speeder, Senator?” Rey asks, all politeness.

Poe eyes her for a second, gaze lingering on the bruise that peeks out from behind the austere collar of her Jedi robes.

The bruise he’d put there last night.

Not in any bad way -- he’d never lay a hand on Rey, or any partner, in violence. No, the bruise there is a pinkish sort of red, purple woven in and out like the threads of a great tapestry, left by his mouth --

_She’d gasped so prettily for him when he pressed his lips tighter to the delicate column of her neck, her tunic bunched up in his hands, her legs wrapped around his waist, her back to the outside wall of his father’s house, and she’d gasped over and over again, trembling all over like a leaf in a storm while his fingers petted down her side, brushing here and there --_

He’d feel bad, marking her up so blatantly, if it weren’t for the _three_ bruises sucked into his collarbone and chest. Rey is always more than eager to get her greedy hands on him, her greedy mouth too if she can help it, and Poe isn’t exactly in the business of denying his girl anything. His shirt has found its way to the floor of his quarters more than once during their explorations -- and last night, Rey’s tunic had joined it. Even now, bone-tired and in the middle of a fairly professional situation, his cock twitches at the memory of her, lithe and long-limbed and skin turned golden by the low light of his bedside candle.

Poe Dameron is utterly karked, and he can’t even summon the ability to care about it at this point. If stolen kisses and soft touches in the dark are all he ever gets, then he’ll die a lucky man who got far more than he deserved. Rey loves him, Rey the Jedi loves him, Rey the most beautiful person he’s ever met loves him -- and he wonders at how it’s not distracting him more from the upcoming elections, only two months out now.

“No,” he says finally in answer to her question. “No, I should stay and speak to the villagers a while.”

Her expression is unreadable, but she stands at his side as he takes questions and hears complaints and makes inquiries of his own for almost three quarters of an hour. Poe can barely contain a yawn after a concerned father asks him _but when will the vaccinations be free again?_ even though he truly does care about that question, and its answer (which is _he doesn’t know, but he’s going to kriffing find out_ ), and, sensing his growing exhaustion, Rey grips his arm and taps her comms.

“Sorry, Senator Dameron,” she says firmly, loudly enough to be heard by most of the gathered people. “You’re needed on a conference call from Chandrila.”

He nods solemnly, more than a little amused that a Jedi is lying for him -- he doesn’t want to think _maybe what we have_ is _corrupting her, just a little,_ but the thought is still there -- and he doesn’t tease her for it because he loves her, and some kinds of teasing don’t yield pleasant responses.

“You know,” Rey says conversationally as they stroll away the lingering crowd, her tone suggesting she’s about to have zero problems teasing him, “Most incumbent Senators, ones who are running unopposed on their home planets, don’t spend a lot of time giving speeches and making promises.”

“Is that so?” Poe can’t hide the crinkle-eyed smile he gives her, and Rey smiles back, all sweetness and light. His stomach swoops at the sight of it, a smile he never could have earned from her six months ago when he was colder and harder and didn’t understand what it would really be to love her. “Are you becoming a political advisor, Master Rey?”

“I don’t know if the Jedi belong in politics, all things considered.”

“Maybe not,” Poe allows, and it’s another warm, conspiratorial smile that passes between them as they distance themselves from the townspeople. “And maybe I don’t need to be here to get re-elected. But I do _need_ to be here, for my people, for all the Yavini. They need to see me, and I need to see what their lives are like, what more I can do for them.”

They’ve stopped at the speeder, and Rey’s got a hand on her lightsaber, scanning their surroundings while he prepares to get into the passenger seat. But, her hand on his forearm catches him before he climbs fully onboard, one foot on the humming vehicle, one still firmly planted on Yavini ground.

“I think,” she begins before clearing her throat and looking up at him. For the moment, all dangers are forgotten, by both of them. For the moment, all he can see in the galaxy is her, all of space and time winnowing down to a pair of hazel eyes. “I think that if more people thought like you … we wouldn’t need the Jedi.”

“What?” Poe’s frozen, slightly taken aback by her statement. “The Jedi--”

“Exist to bring balance,” Rey shrugs, her fingers light on his arm, the contact burning him all the same. “Protect people from the Dark. But we see things in the extreme. Always. It’s this or that, right or wrong, Light or Dark. You’re not a perfect person, Senator,” and he snorts at that, “But you’re a _good_ person.”

Somehow, Rey thinking he’s a good person means more than any Senate position or any amount of fame or wealth he’s ever been offered. She’s giving him a compliment, and he’s never felt more humbled. And she isn’t even done yet, he realizes, a blush rising on his cheeks as he stares at her, and she returns to studying the horizon.

“The Jedi ask people to be perfect, it feels, and … well, no one is. I’m certainly not. But you -- you’re good. You’re the best person I’ve ever met. And if more people thought the way you do -- thought about ways to actually help people before there are problems, and not just offer assistance when things are already so bad that fixing them can only lead to more problems -- if more people did that … maybe the Jedi could end.”

She releases him and walks around the speeder to the driver’s seat, and Poe tries not to fall off, still caught off-guard by her declaration. It’s probably the longest speech she’s ever given, as Rey’s not a person of many words, and he knows without a doubt he’ll carry the weight of it, the weight of her trust and her opinion of him for the rest of his life, the only inheritance he gives a damn about.

By the time she’s settled in her driver’s seat, prim and serene and perfect despite her claims to the contrary, he’s somehow hauled himself up to the seat next to her, his skin burning, and eyes suspiciously watery.

 _We are in public,_ he reminds himself. _She is a Jedi. That is the path she has chosen, and is currently choosing. You do not get to claim her here, in full sight of the galaxy. Even if you want to._

He reaches up slowly instead, brushing the backs of his fingers against a soft, freckled cheek. Rey stiffens slightly while powering the speeder all the way on, and her eyes flick over to him.

“Senator?”

 _She doesn’t call me that at night,_ he reminds himself, _not when her legs are around my waist and my hand’s in her hair. It’s not Senator, then._ The thought isn’t helping his self-control.

Quietly, so quietly he can barely hear his own voice over the ion engines heating up underneath them, he murmurs, “I love you.”

Her eyes darken, and it’s not just a trick of the light. His gut clenches almost unbearably, and he thinks wildly for a moment, _Fuck the Jedi, fuck the Senate, I want to make love to her on the back of this speeder for the whole galaxy to see, want her to call me by my name with an assembly present, want them all to know why it is my heart beats --_

But that is not their lot. That is not what the Force has given him. The reminder doesn’t make him furious, the way it would have once. The Force has shown him too much in the past months for him to blame It. No: this is what they have, here, here and _now,_ in this universe, in this version of their story. And he’ll take what he can get.

Poe brushes his fingertips lightly over her top lip, a small enough gesture that no one could question it from a distance, and Rey’s breath hitches, a blush blossoming over her cheeks, a flare of heat he can feel from their proximity. Trust Rey to be the warmest thing in a jungle.

“Know that I want to kiss you,” he says softly to her, and her eyes widen slightly as she inhales, inaudible over the engines and the distant crash and call of cicadas in the trees. He swoops the tip of his pointer finger over her full bottom lip. “Like this. Properly. If I could, I’d kiss you here,” he lets his fingers trace over her jaw, perhaps a movement to brush away hair or a pesky insect to any outsiders, “And I’d never stop. The moment we get home, I want to kiss you. I’m going to kiss you, unless you tell me to stop. But I wanted you to know: all I can think of right now is my mouth on your body, anywhere you’ll let me kiss, and the only thing stopping me are two titles and half an ounce of common sense.”

“Poe.” Rey’s fingers tighten on the controls, and she’s trembling harder now.

“Take us home, sweetheart.” He nudges her gently, smiling when she looks over him, trying not to show how her heated gaze makes him writhe and burn.

“Only if you promise.” Her voice has come back to her then, and the stubborn look in her eyes he knows and loves so well.

“Promise what, Sunshine?”

“To do exactly as you said.” Rey tosses her braid over her shoulder and looks him in the eyes almost challengingly. “And then some.”

He takes her hand off the controls and holds it in his own. Carefully, lighter than a moth’s wing, he brushes his lips over her knuckles. “I promise.”

He’d promise her anything. Poe just hopes it won’t get them killed one day.

***

Poe knows his papa watches the way the Force blossoms between him and Rey warily; Kes loves Rey, he has no doubts. They’ve only been on Yavin IV for a few weeks, but Poe knows from painful experience it doesn’t take nearly that long to learn to love his Jedi protector. Kes has teased Poe about his obvious feelings for the young woman from Jakku, has voiced an interest in seeing his son happy, but all the same:

Poe knows where his father’s concern comes from, and it makes it hurt worse.

He understands it one morning, the realization spilling over him like cold water down his spine, when Rey gets up from the table to answer a call from the temple, leaving the Dameron men at the kitchen, breakfast still half-eaten in front of them. Poe watches Rey leave, a common occurrence for the rare times Rey leaves his side, and when he looks back to his father, a little embarrassed to be caught staring at the ass of a Jedi for so long, Kes can barely school the look of grief he wears into something less gut-wrenching.

“Papa?” Poe reaches out to cover his father’s hand with his own. “What’s--”

“Nothing,” his father whispers in the old language. “An old man’s worries. Nothing more.” Before Poe can ask anything further, Kes adds, “We should not question the Force, not Its reasons for giving and taking. Excuse me, starling.” He stands quickly, a hand tight around the silver ring he wears on a necklace just like Poe’s and walks swiftly for the door.

Kes Dameron had been only a few years older than Poe is now when Shara Bey had died. Thirty-seven and a widow, left to grieve and live and fight and survive in a galaxy that had once spun around a tiny pilot with a rapier wit, left to raise a wild son who’d done the cruelest thing of moving away as soon as he had the chance.

Kes Dameron watches the way the Force blossoms between Rey and Poe warily, not out of distrust of the Jedi, or of a concern for the discovery of their affair -- no, that’s not it.

Poe realizes Kes fears that his son will suffer the exact same fate he did; left to grieve and live and fight and survive in a galaxy whose main reason for existing has been snuffed out.

When Rey returns from the call, she makes a soft noise of alarm, a chirrup of concern that pours out of her throat like a birdsong; no matter how gently she asks, Poe can’t bring himself to explain the reason for his sudden tears.

***

Rey gets another call a week later, and she flies out of the comms room, a hand clasped to her mouth. Poe jumps up from his desk, where he’d been practicing a speech with his father, his heart suddenly in his throat.

“Rey?”

Her eyes are red where they hadn’t been before she walked in; the call had come from the temple, and the person behind the call hadn’t been announced. Poe’s mind goes to a thousand terrible places, and Rey hasn’t said a word.

“What’s wrong, little Jedi?” Kes asks, standing as well, his brow creasing.

It’s at the sound of her title that Rey chokes on a sob, her hand pressing harder to her mouth in response.

“Rey?” Poe reaches out to her, and she shakes her head.

“B-Ben,” she begins, but she cuts herself off with a fresh cry, almost of pain.

“Ben?” Poe startles forward, and Rey doesn’t block him from holding her. “Gods, Rey, did something happen to Ben?”

His friend, her Master and confidante -- it’d be too much of a loss on the heels of losing Muran, and Poe can’t stomach the thought of a galaxy where the light in Leia’s eyes is dimmed by the loss of her only beloved son. He can’t fathom it. He refuses to.

“N-no,” Rey shakes her head and steels herself, taking a shaking breath that steadies on the exhale. “He - he said…” She trails off when she meets Poe’s eyes, and it’s like she’s begging him to understand without her having to finish. He thinks wildly for a moment -- _Ben’s figured it out,_ he thinks almost immediately, _He knows that I’m in love with her, and she with me, and he means to, what, punish her?_ \-- but Rey gives up on hope of a revival of their short-lived telepathic connection (dormant since they both collapsed on Ruusan under the stress) with a angry sigh.

“The way I …. _got rid of_ our attackers on Ruusan somehow got out, and they know….they know I’m a killer.” Poe wants to protest, _she was just protecting them, after all,_ but Rey will not be stopped. “Ben was warning me that the other Senators are questioning my placement,” she snaps, her cheeks bright red. Her anger takes the place of her sadness, and that sadness has nowhere to go but into Poe, who realizes that must mean -- “They want Master Luke to switch me from your detail.”

“No.” Poe shakes his head quickly. “No - no, I won’t let them.”

“It’s not up to us,” Rey says miserably, her head drooping. “If Master Luke decides it’s for the best…”

“Fuck that.” Poe grips her shoulders tightly, unable to stop himself even in front of his father, who’s definitely still in the room.

“As a Jedi--”

“ _Fuck_ the Jedi,” Poe snaps, and Rey’s mouth pops open.

She looks more shocked than furious with him, and he stumbles forward with his mess of words. That’s all he’s ever been good at, really. Words. And flying, but fat lot of good that will do him here.

“I won’t let them take you away,” Poe swears desperately, and Rey’s chin wobbles, doubt flashing in her eyes. “No - no, I mean it--”

“That’s not the --” Rey places her hand firmly on his chest and shakes her head, and Poe wills her to feel how quickly his heart is pounding, for her to realize that he _means_ it. “Poe, we can’t think like that.”

“But I love you,” he whispers like it’s a confession. With his father watching, it may as well be. “I can’t lose you, not you sweetheart, I can’t--”

“You might have to.” Rey laughs weakly. “I’m a Jedi, I can’t...I swore an oath. If my Master wants me to go, then I…”

“What if we had an oath?” Poe whispers, searching her face for any sign she understands him. “What if -- there was a promise more important than the one you made to the Jedi? Would you go then?”

“Yes,” Rey’s lip trembles slightly when she answers, and Poe flinches because he’s tough, but he isn’t that tough. “I can’t lose myself to selfishness, Poe, please, believe me, I...I _would_ want an entire lifetime with you, but not at the cost of…not if it meant I would...” she trails off, tears clinging to her eyelashes, but Poe can barely see them for the tears that have very inconveniently decided to track down his own cheeks, slipping into the beard he’s been growing since their arrival.

Everything he’s learned about Rey, and her sense of honor and duty, and her connection to the Jedi unspools in his mind, a web that he can’t begin to untangle, but he still needs to respect. Poe nods, choking slightly on the grief of it all, that he can love her and lose her anyway. Losing Rey, when he could just easily beg and plead and wear her down into staying at his side, is letting go of his own selfishness, he realizes. Recognizing that her life as a Jedi would be just as important to her as any life she could spend at his side is letting go of his selfishness. He needs to do that, for her. He can do anything for her. He knows that.

“There’s nowhere in the galaxy you can go where I won’t love you,” Poe says, clasping her hands in his. “That’s my promise to you.”

Tears are shining in her eyes still, but the light seems to be returning as well. “I -- it’s the same for me.” He nods and smiles, using the backs of his hands to wipe at his cheeks, unwilling to release her hands for a second. “I’d … I want to be bound to you, forever.”

He laughs wetly at her kindness, but she takes a step forward, shaking her head.

“I mean it, Senator.” Poe stops laughing. Everything stops. The entire galaxy stops. He swears even the Force pauses to listen. “That’s what you were talking about, right? An oath more important than the one I made to the Jedi?”

He doesn’t need to answer her question for her to know that it’s true; he tells her as much with his expression, and most likely the love he can feel pouring out of him and towards her, this magnificent, brilliant woman.

“I want you, forever.” Rey rests her forehead against his, and their next breath is a shared one. He thinks he can feel it echo, somewhere behind his heart, somewhere in the Force.

“You sure?” Poe asks, and he smiles, his heart breaking as much as it’s healing when she nods and whispers _yes._

“Papa?” He glances over his shoulder to see his father -- openly crying because of course he is -- standing as a quiet witness.

“I’m here, mijo.”

“Then I have everything I need.” Poe takes a step back and clasps Rey’s hands anew, holding them tightly in the space between them. “Last chance, sweetheart.”

“I know what it is I want.” Rey examines him for a long moment before smiling brighter than the star that burns overhead.

“Okay.” Poe clears his throat and then laughs. “Beebee-Ate’s going to be so karking pissed that he wasn’t here for this.”

Rey squeezes his hands, and it serves as a potent reminder that this is actually happening. Poe wonders if this might be another Force vision, but he lets that go pretty quickly, given the lack of golden-bright light in the room, and the absence of that strange echoing grief for lives he’ll never lead.

“I, Poe Dameron, son of Shara Bey and of Kes, pledge my life and my love to you.” He kisses their clasped hands, his heart pounding so loudly his father should be able to hear it across the room.

It’s her turn, but it takes Rey a second to notice; he has to squeeze her hands again to get her to respond.

“Sorry,” she laughs nervously. “This is only my second wedding.” He laughs too, at that, and she manages to complete her line with minimal fumbling. “I, Rey, daughter of … Jakku … pledge my life and my love to you.”

“It was the Force who gave you to me, and it is to the Force I make this promise,” Poe wants to kiss her, but there’s two more lines and one more thing standing in the way of that. Rey repeats it back to him shyly, and they lean against each other for a long second before continuing, the setting sun now casting warm, dark orange shadows on the wall behind them. “Where you go, there I will also be; my heart with your heart, my soul with your soul.”

While Rey’s repeating the third line of the traditional vow, Poe releases his grip on her hands and pulls the necklace over his head with shaking hands. He pulls the ring free and takes Rey’s much smaller left hand in his own.

“With this ring, I thee wed.” He slips the ring onto her fourth finger, feeling as though the Force roars in his ears with the rightness of it.

Rey’s in his arms a second later, her arms looped around his neck while she presses her mouth to his; Poe kisses her back just as eagerly while his father whoops and cries behind them.

When they break apart, Poe smiles down at her, their shared grief momentarily forgotten in the blaze of joy that’s come up to shield them from the darker promises of the future.

“My wife,” he murmurs, tracing her bottom lip with his thumb.

“My husband,” Rey whispers back, darting in to kiss the tip of his thumb lightly.

He stares at her for a long moment, consumed by want and need and something a thousand times heavier than both -- when he looks back up, he sees that Kes has made himself scarce.

“Where did he go?” Rey asks, pouting slightly, that is, until Poe scoops her up in his arms with a faint growl.

“Can I…” he licks his bottom lip, and wants to growl again when her eyes track the movement, her previous concern about his father’s location obviously gone from her mind. “Can I take you to bed?”

Rey nods, quicker and quicker until she’s laughing brightly with unbridled joy. He kisses her, caught up in that same happiness, the kiss lighter than the way he feels, light and easy until Rey bites at his bottom lip. Then the fire is back, back to consume them both, and he sweeps off to his quarters with little to no concern for any kind of future that doesn’t involve his wife, a bed, and a locked door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all.
> 
> I'm very sorry for my continued absence from the SW fandom. I've been meaning to update this fic for a while, and we're very much nearing the final arc and conclusion. If everyone's still onboard with this story, and myself, the errant author, I'd love to finish it up. 
> 
> Let me know what you think//if you haven't given up on me yet.
> 
>  
> 
> Next chapter is _exactly_ what you think it is.


	15. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Rey spend their first night as a married couple in Poe's old bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Look at me, updating in the same weekend. Who even am I? I wanted to get this show on the road though, as you all have been more than patient and were so supportive about chapter 14.
> 
> Happy, uh, Sinful Sunday?
> 
>  **Warnings**  
>  So much consensual smut, starting at "She makes a small noise of exasperation" so you can stop reading there until the next set of *** if you want.

The walk to his quarters has never felt longer, or more important.

Poe can’t stop staring at Rey’s face when he should be focused on walking, but through the grace of the Force, he doesn’t stub his toe, or worse, bang Rey’s feet or head into a wall or doorway. He has zero doubts she’d find a way for payback if he did that, and it’d be a million times more funny and well-planned. His wife is clever like that.

_ His wife. _

He can’t stop thinking the words, and he wonders if Rey can see how much he loves her, if it’s shining out of his eyes like light pours from a dying star. It feels like that. It feels like he’s being gutted and hollowed out, filled up with stardust and a thousand other beautiful things. His entire life, his mind, his being has changed since he met Rey, and it feels as though it’s culminating to this moment. 

They finally reach the door to his quarters on the compound, and he kicks the door a little gracelessly. It rattles open slowly, and Poe sucks in a breath before crossing the threshold, eyes still fixed to Rey’s face; the dying light of Yavin catches on her hair and brings out hidden flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, and he needs to blink to clear his vision because she’s the most dazzling thing he’s ever seen. He’s thought privately to himself that Rey’s the most beautiful person in the galaxy, and now, as they’re entering his quarters, he tells her as much.

“Stop it.” Rey pushes at his chest, and he smiles, setting her down on her feet. “Am not.”

“Yes, you are.” 

The doors slide shut behind them, and the soft interior lights of his quarters flicker on. It’s relatively spartan in the front room -- his father had packed up some of his stuff when he’d left the Academy and sent it to his new apartments on Chandrila -- but his bedroom looks a lot like it had when he was a teenager. His childhood bedroom is part of the main house, but these quarters had been cheerfully constructed by Kes when Poe entered his “breakneck and reckless teenage rebellion” stage, as Kes was so fond of calling it.

His father had built this home for Poe, and for Poe’s mother -- a distant echo of grief sounds behind Poe’s heart. He’ll never be able to enjoy the same sort of domesticity as his father; no one can ever know about him and Rey.

_ But what we have isn’t wrong,  _ he argues with himself, even as he takes Rey’s face in his hands and strokes his thumbs over her sharp cheekbones, admiring her freckles.  _ Why can’t the galaxy know?  _

Rey would be excommunicated from the Jedi, the only family she’s ever known, for one. For another, Poe would face endless scandal and might even lose his seat, if the Senate Select’s less democratic members had a say in the matter. So no, he won’t be able to build a house for the woman he loves, or for any children they might have.

_ Children _ . Another clench in his gut at the thought of curly-haired boys with wide, hazel eyes. The little boy in the vision the Force had shown him all those months ago.  _ Han.  _ Han Dameron, whose mother had died. 

“Why are you so sad?” Rey asks, breaking his reverie. Poe wonders how long they’ve been standing here while he chokes on regrets that aren’t even of his making. 

“I’m not sad,” he assures her with a smile. She catches a tear at the corner of his eye with a small lift of her eyebrow, silently questioning the veracity of that statement. “I’m … I’m so proud to be your husband, is all.”

“Oh.” Her face flushes with happiness, and Rey ducks her head, smiling. “I like that. The way that sounds.”

“Yeah?” Poe noses along her hairline, his hands sliding down to wrap lightly around the column of her throat. “I’m your husband.”

“And I’m your wife,” Rey says with no shortage of joy, her melodic voice causing the thin skin of her neck to vibrate under Poe’s thumbs.

“Say it again,” Poe orders, a little bossily. He hopes she hears his greed for what it is - complete and total happiness.

“Your wife,” Rey repeats indulgently. She leans up on her toes to offer him a kiss, and his hands slide to her hair, tugging it out of the loose braid she was wearing all day. “I’m your wife.”

“Does that please you?” Poe asks, suddenly nervous. He pulls away to study Rey’s face, and he’s happy to note the way her eyelashes have fluttered shut from their kissing, happy to note her slightly swollen bottom lip. 

“I’ve never been anyone’s anything,” Rey confesses, her eyes opening to meet his. She bites her pink bottom lip but doesn’t look away. “...I like it more than I should.”

“You’re my everything,” Poe tells her hoarsely, like it’s not obvious already. “You have to know that, Sunshine. You’re the entire galaxy to me.”

“I don’t know if that’s--”

“I don’t give a damn.” Poe doesn’t make it a habit to interrupt Rey -- not when her words are so precious to him -- but he doesn’t want to listen to her say something about  _ Jedi  _ and  _ passion  _ and  _ dangerous.  _ Not when -- “The Force. It showed me.”

“Showed you what?” Rey frowns slightly, and Poe debates putting this off for a few minutes, or a few hours. They  _ did  _ just get married after all. They could be doing other things. Married people things.

Instead, he smiles and answers, because she asked. 

“Remember when I told you I’d been having dreams, from the tree?” Rey nods. “Well, they were usually about you. About us. Different versions of us.”

“What?” Rey crinkles her nose, but she hasn’t called him bantha-brains yet, so he figures he’s good to keep going.

“It kept showing me … I don’t know, different versions of the galaxy, where … where you weren’t a Jedi. Or I wasn’t a Senator. We were Rebel fighters sometimes, like my parents, and … no matter where we were, we found each other. And we loved each other. The Force wanted me to see that.”

“Why do you think the Force wanted you to see it?” Rey furrows her brow at him, and Poe smiles at her expression.

“I think It wanted me to know that … loving you … it wasn’t wrong. It was only natural. In any life. In any galaxy. I find you, and I love you. Force-approved.”

She pokes him lightly in the side, but far from where his ribs are still healing up from the blaster bolt. “That’s not how the Force works.”

“I know.” Poe rubs his nose against hers for a second, smiling almost sleepily. “But it  _ did  _ work that way. This time, it did. And we --” his voice breaks for a second, “We were so happy, in all of those lives. We were  _ happy _ , Rey.”

“We’re happy now,” Rey reminds him, and Poe nods quickly, closing his eyes to hide the tears that have inexplicably formed. 

They’re happy  _ now,  _ but what about when they’re separated? What about when Luke discovers their relationship, their marriage? Will he order it annulled? Will the Jedi keep them apart? Will they drag her away?

His fingers tighten on Rey’s waist without him realizing, and she makes a soft noise of reproval, and he releases her sheepishly.

“We’re happy,” Rey says again, kissing along his jaw, nuzzling along the stubbled skin. Poe lets out a shaky breath and nods. “You make me happy.”

“You make me happy, too,” Poe whispers, his hands sliding to her back to hold her closely. 

They sway together for a few moments, the quiet of the room washing over them, the distant call of cicadas and birds wrapping around them like a lullaby. Then, Rey presses a kiss to his shoulder, her fingers stroking tentatively along his forearms, and the peace of the moment fades away, melting into something liquid-hot and simmering under Poe’s skin. 

“Is this all married people do?” Rey asks, the bravado in her voice slightly masking the nervousness. “Hold each other?”

“Sometimes,” Poe says, pulling back to smirk at her. He can’t hide the hunger in his face, and Rey’s pupils widen at whatever she sees there. “Sometimes, though, they….”

“Fuck?” Rey fills in without a hint of mortification, and Poe’s sure he turns the same color as Crait’s famous salt fields. She giggles, sweet and teasing, and prods at his side again. “You were all keen to fuck a few months ago--”

“That - that was different,” Poe protests weakly. “I -- don’t expect that from you.” 

It sits between them heavily for a second, and Rey recoils from him. His arms feel immediately colder without her there.

“I thought fucking was…” Rey shifts, rubbing her left elbow with her right hand. “You … you fuck all the time. Why would I be any different?”

“I don’t,” Poe says, and Rey starts to roll her eyes. “I haven’t ...had sex with anyone since I met you.”

“The other senator,” Rey begins, but Poe shakes her head.

“She’s a friend, and while we….sure, in the past,” he stammers slightly, mortified beyond all belief to be discussing his past sex life so casually with his beautiful wife, who’s staring at him like he’s grown a second head or has morphed into some other life form.  _ Probably because you’ve never been embarrassed about sex before in your life? Maybe?  _ “No, I mean -- when you… when I saw you, I … I couldn’t stop thinking … I had to end it. Almost immediately. I couldn’t….” He trails off and hangs his head.

“Couldn’t what?” Of course she wouldn’t just let him end it there.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of sharing that with someone who wasn’t you,” Poe confesses to the floor, his ears burning. “You’re all I want. And … I’ll take whatever you want to give. If we never have sex, that’s … it’s beyond okay with me, sweetheart. Just being with you, getting to hold you. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have.”

A version of Poe, living about three or four years in the past, surely clutches his heart and keels over in shock at the statement. But there isn’t a hint of falsehood in it. He means it. Just as much as he meant the vow made in sight of the Force and his father. 

“And if I want to have sex with you?” 

He looks up in surprise and flushes. Rey’s as red as he feels, and he blinks a few times before he can talk. 

“I … I know intimacy is difficult for you, so I figured--”

“Without even asking me?” Rey makes a short, hissing sound like she’s angry, rolling her eyes ferociously. “Honestly.”

“Right.” Poe nods and clears his throat, feeling as though Rey has every right to roll her eyes at him at the moment. “...Rey, would you want to have sex with me?”

“Yes.” Rey lifts an eyebrow and snorts. “We’re married. I thought that was … part of the deal.” She waves a hand around vaguely as she speaks, as though explaining the finer workings of an engine to a very slow counterpart.

“It doesn’t have to be.” Poe reaches out and takes her hand, holding it up next to his heart in both of his own. Her palm rests above his heart beat, her fingers splayed out, and he ducks his head down and kisses each of her fingertips before he speaks again. “Marriage doesn’t mean you have to have sex with me. It doesn’t.”

“Are you only saying this because you assume I don’t want to have sex?” Rey frowns at him, and Poe looks up and shrugs.

“Well...yeah. I know I haven’t done the best job of hiding how attracted I am to you, and the last thing I want is to take advan--”

“For R’iia’s sake,” Rey swears, grabbing the front of his -- expensive, sort of expensive, okay, very expensive -- silk shirt and yanking him forward. She glares up at him, cheeks flushed and eyes flashing. “I want you, flyboy. I’ve wanted to fuck you since before I figured out why I was staring at your ass when I should have been watching your back; I love you, and I want you, and just -- ugh!” 

She kisses him, sharp and fierce before he can even say  _ guh,  _ or more likely,  _ meep,  _ her small hands gripping his shirt so tightly he feels like he might as well throw it out when all this is done because no amount of cleaning is going to get the wrinkles out. 

“Do you believe me now?” Rey asks, panting slightly when they separate. Poe nods, desperate to have his mouth on her again, and they kiss again, teeth clicking together slightly as Poe tugs her back, pulling her towards the open door. “Take advantage,” Rey mutters between kisses. “Like I can’t kick your ass--”

“I know,” Poe murmurs, helping her as her fingers, calloused and slender and strong, start to pull at the buttons of his slightly ruined shirt. “Gods, I know, I love you--”

She makes a small noise of exasperation when a button won’t give, and he mutters, “Just tear it, I don’t give a kriffing--” and the buttons rattle on the floor slightly as she complies. They’re in his bedroom at last, tumbling towards the bed, Rey’s hands already fumbling with the button of his pants, and Poe laughs into her open mouth in sheer exhilaration. His back hits the mattress, and a second later, Rey climbs on top of him, a sharp smile of victory on her pretty face. They kiss, hot and hard, for a good long while, until Poe can’t help but buck his hips up on instinct, the tip of his cock brushing against Rey enough to make her stiffen and her mouth make a pretty  _ o.  _

And he remembers.

Poe braces his leg against hers and pushes slightly, signaling that he wants to switch positions. Rey goes easily enough, flipping so she’s on her back, and then Poe hovers over her, kissing her this time, languid and slow, his tongue dipping into her mouth to stroke against hers. He swallows her first moan greedily, given to him as he slides a hand down her side, lingering slightly over her hip before sliding up to tug on the hem of her tunic.

“Can I?” 

Rey nods and sits up, Poe moving with her so he can pull the offending fabric free. She puts a hand up to her breast band, and he studies the way her blush spreads above the white garment, staining her delicate collarbone and bringing out her freckles even more. 

“We can take that off when you’re ready,” Poe assures her. It’s never come off in their explorations of each other, and he’s never tried. If Rey wants that piece of modesty, he’s never going to take it from her.

She surprises him by reaching behind her back with one hand and unpinning the band. 

“You can…” Rey blushes and looks down at where their legs are slightly tangled together. “You can take it off. I want you to.”

Poe nods, and his hands are shaking as he lifts them to do just that. He carefully unwinds the fabric, his fingertips brushing against the heated skin of her chest here and there, and Rey shivers while staring up at him. He looks back into her eyes, not watching the slow reveal of her body, not until she’s bare and ready for him to. 

When the fabric flutters to the floor next to the bed, Rey rests her weight on her palms and leans back, shrugging as if to say  _ go ahead and look.  _ Poe smiles at her one last time, leaning in to kiss her once, sweetly, before pulling back to really get a look at her. 

She’s perfect, but he knew she would be, and there are no words in Basic, or Yavini, that can do justice to the way Rey looks, half naked and sprawled out on his bed, the dark sheets beneath her making her pale, freckled skin glow like moonlight. She’s a --

“Goddess,” Poe whispers, and whether it’s in Yavini or Basic is anyone’s guess. He kisses her again, a hand against her cheek. 

“Touch me,” Rey says, her heartbeat fluttering against his palm when he rests it on the side of her neck. “Please?”

He nods, smiling like she actually has to  _ ask  _ him to touch her, like it’s a hard ship, and he slowly strokes his fingers over the swell of her breast, watching the way her eyelashes flutter and her head tilts back as she makes a soft, low noise in her throat. It makes him feel strong and vulnerable all at once, and he gently brushes his thumb over a pert, light brown nipple to see what that does.

It makes Rey squeak and grab his bicep, that’s what it does. Poe grins and repeats the experiment on the other side, and Rey falls all the way back on the bed, smiling up at him with complete trust in her gaze. 

He’ll spend the rest of his life making sure he deserves that trust. It’s the central mantra he follows now --  _ make sure you deserve whatever she gives you. _

“Is this okay?” Poe asks when she starts to bite on her bottom lip; he’s begun to stir a circuit over her, one breast to the other, down to her navel with the back of his fingers, and back up to her breast. 

Rey nods and lets out a shaky breath. “It feels -- it feels so good...I just .. it’s a … a lot.”

“Yeah.” Poe smiles at her and then sucks in a breath through his teeth when she reaches down without warning and taps at the front of his pants. “Rey--”

“Can I touch you?” 

“Of course.” Poe laughs, shaking his head and pressing a series of kisses to Rey’s temple. He shifts so he’s lying on his side, one hand still toying with her breasts, and Rey fumbles with the opening of his pants until she can slip a hand down the front. 

It’s embarrassing, the noise that comes out of his mouth when Rey’s fingers catch on the side of his cock, and Poe buries his face in her shoulder and makes the noise again when she repeats the action. 

“Is that okay?” He nods, helpless to raise his voice to answer her question, and Rey giggles. He lifts his head to smile back at her, and finds her staring at where her hand disappears into his pants, a look of fervent concentration on her face. “What should I do?”

“Anything,” Poe huffs out. “But, uh - if you want to… if you can … grasp it, not - not hard!” He adds hastily because Rey really is the strongest person he’s met, with a dangerous level of enthusiasm to boot, “But … if you do, you can just … move your hand up and down, and uh, ah---”

“Like that?”

Pod nods, voice gone again, as Rey grips the shaft his cock and starts to stroke it, strangely smooth and confident for someone who  _ definitely  _ hasn’t done this before. Poe kisses her, his hand stilling on her stomach, and Rey kisses him back. He can feel her smile when he moans lightly into her mouth. 

“Your turn?” Rey wiggles her hips demonstratively and eyes him when they break apart. “It feels… gods, it feels…” She rubs her thighs together and makes a frustrated noise, her hand stilling slightly on his cock. 

“Warm?” Poe guesses.

“Empty,” Rey whines, and Poe groans again, his mind about to disconnect from the sensory overload. This is  _ Rey,  _ his bodyguard, his  _ Jedi  _ bodyguard, and she’s .. he’s making her feel… “Please, Poe, I can’t -- it feels--”

“I got you, sweetheart,” Poe promises, swallowing slightly at the enormity of the promise. They maneuver again slightly so that Poe can undo the fastening of her leggings and slip his hand down slowly, watching her face in case she changes her mind. There’s a thatch of curls there, and Rey whimpers slightly as he passes through it, down to where she’s wet and hot and waiting for him.

“Like this?” Poe asks, more nervous than he’d been at sixteen when he’d tried this the first time with a girl in his speeder. Rey nods, and then nods and gasps, closing her eyes, her small fast tightening around his cock, when he finds her clit and circles it gently, so gently, counterclockwise. 

“Oh,” Rey nods quickly, hasn’t stopped nodding. “Y-yes--”

“Fuck.” Poe bites the word out, spitting out the second half of it, before kissing Rey’s neck and jaw sloppily. “I love you so much.” 

He keeps stirring circles over her clit, switching the direction now and then, dipping his finger down, pushing the tip into her tight entrance -- his brain goes offline  _ again  _ at how tight she is -- and Rey mewls and nods and gasps the whole time, her hand still working over his cock. The pace falters a bit here and there, but Poe doesn’t care, not when she’s panting and whispering his name like an invocation of a deity.

“I need,” Rey makes a frustrated noise and pulls her hand away from him, but only to tug at the top of his pants. “Come on, we need to--” She tugs at her own leggings, and Poe laughs breathlessly as they stop touching each other long enough to pull their respective pants down all the way and kick them free. 

They’re both fully naked now, and Poe’s heart slams in his chest at how Rey feels pressed up against him. She wraps her arms around his neck happily, kissing him again and again as his hands wander up and down her side, following the subtle curve of her body and brushing over a nipple just to feel her sigh against him. 

“I love you,” she whispers when they’re side by side, and her hand wraps around his cock again. 

“I love you,” Poe answers, half smiling as his fingers slip down to tease her clit again. She bends the knee of her top leg so her foot rests on the bed, giving him better access to her, and he slowly circles her entrance with his finger. “May I--”

“Yes, please,” Rey breathes.

“Relax,” he whispers, kissing her sweetly, closing his eyes for a moment to enjoy how her hand feels stroking his cock. “Breathe, sweetheart, just relax and breathe.”

She does, and he’s kissing her as he slides his middle finger into her and continues to circle her clit with his thumb. 

“Oh.” Rey’s hand tightens around him again. “ _ Oh. _ ”

“Yeah, oh,” Poe laughs, kissing her once, briefly, his breath coming too ragged now to do much of anything else. “Oh, fuck, sweetheart, you feel so good--”

She gasps and shakes her head a little as though she can’t understand what’s happening, and Rey’s staring at him in open shock when she shudders and her body clenches around his finger like a vise. 

“P- _ Poe _ .” Rey comes as prettily as she does everything else, her face contorted and red, and Poe’s hips jerk forward as he comes as well, shouting something that’s Rey’s name and a thousand other things. 

He waits a few seconds as his brain’s clearing to slide his finger out and wipe it off on the sheets beneath them, and Rey lets go of his cock slowly, her fingers slipping away one at a time until her hand rests on the bed. She turns her face into the pillow, her shoulders heaving, and Poe kisses her arm and shoulder, rubbing her back soothingly.

“Are you okay, Sunshine?” He asks when she makes no effort to speak.

“You broke me,” Rey accuses into the pillow. Poe laughs, quietly at first but then loudly, utterly delighted at her response. She peers up at him, trying to scowl but she ulimately fails, a real smile teasing at the corners of her mouth. “You sound much too happy about that.”

“You’re so beautiful when you come,” Poe says by way of answering, and Rey buries her face back in the pillow as he returns to kissing her. “My beautiful wife.”

“Mhm.”

“My wife.” Poe kisses her shoulder. “My  _ wife. _ ” He kisses the top of her spine, his fingers stroking down the knobs of it before stroking slightly over the swell of her ass. “My perfect wife.”

“Not perfect.”

“Yes, you are.” Poe shakes his head and kisses her sharp shoulder blade. “My wife is perfect.”

“You like saying that too much.” Rey rolls over to squint at him, clearly uncaring or not remembering that she’s as naked as the day she was born, and she places a hand behind her head. “My husband is weird.”

Poe leans to kiss the rosy tip of a breast at that declaration, and he smiles as Rey inhales sharply in surprise. “Does that feel good?”

“Yes.” Rey squirms slightly but then yawns. “Sorry--”

“Don’t be.” Poe lies down next to her and wraps his arms around her. “Sleep a little. I’ll be here when you wake up, and then you can continue to defile me properly.”

Rey giggles sleepily and nestles into his chest, her nose brushing up against his collarbone. Poe closes his own eyes and smiles contentedly. He’d meant what he said earlier -- even if they never have sex fully,  _ this  _ is enough. Holding Rey will always be enough, feeling her heart beat so close to his own, having her next to him, knowing that she’s alive and vibrant in the Force, that her mind and her soul are within reach, if only he can earn the way to see what’s in both.

“You’re thinking a lot,” Rey notes, and Poe snorts at having been found out. “Just go to sleep, Senator.”

“Bossy,” Poe kisses the top of her head without opening his eyes. “My wife is bossy.”

“...Laserbrain.”

***

Kes wakes them up six hours later, and Poe manages to fumble his way into a robe before he opens the door.

“What is it?” He runs a hand through his curls, trying to blink sleep out of his eyes. 

Kes stares determinedly at the doorway, not looking at Poe’s very obvious disheveled state or lack of proper clothing. 

“Kes?” Rey’s half-awake behind Poe. “What’s wrong?”

“Hey, Rey.” Kes lifts a hand and does not look behind Poe, which is good, considering Rey’s definitely naked still. “Uhm. Got a call about ten minutes ago. From Master Solo.” There’s a rustle of sheets behind Poe, and he looks over his shoulder to see Rey clutching the bedsheet to herself, eyes wide with shock and trepidation. Poe looks back at his dad and implores him without words to finish the thought.

“He’ll be here in an hour.”

There’s a thump as Rey falls out of bed, and honestly, Poe doesn’t feel that much better.

***

When Ben’s A-Wing lands in front of the Dameron compound, Poe’s adequately dressed for company -- begrudgingly wearing shorts and a loose shirt-- and Rey’s back in the traditional Jedi robes that Poe both hates and loves. 

She’d stared at the ring on her hand for a solid three minutes before Poe had covered her hand with his own and whispered,  _ I can keep it safe until we find out what he wants.  _ Rey had nodded, tears in her eyes, and he’d kissed her for a long time before taking back the ring he'd given her so freely, so happily, only hours before. 

It sits, cold and almost foreign, against his chest.

Ben walks down the ramp towards them, Yavin not rising above the horizon just yet, and Kes stands behind them on the front step of the compound.

Without thinking, Poe grabs Rey’s hand when Ben stares at her for a second too long. His warm brown eyes, as sharp and clever as ever, follow the movement and he lands on their clasped hands.

Ben lifts an eyebrow, an impressive imitation of his esteemed mother.

“...Interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~happy sinful sunday yet again~
> 
>  
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed, and I can only imagine what Ben Solo is thinking right now. Or you all. Hm.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading xox <3


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